Editor's update: The Jacksonville Jaguars selected DeAntre Prince in the fifth round of the NFL draft on Saturday. He was pick number 153 overall.
The original story follows.
The NFL draft gets underway Thursday night in Detroit, and with it begins the countdown to a potentially historic, life-altering telephone call for Charleston’s DeAntre Prince.
The 23-year-old “Tre” Prince, a 2019 graduate of Charleston High School and a local sports sensation, is expected this week to become the first Tallahatchian ever to be drafted to play professional football in the National Football League.
Several Tallahatchie countians have played in the NFL as free-agent signees, but none yet holds the distinction of having been drafted.
Mock drafts have Prince, a 6-0, 183-pound cornerback, being picked anywhere from the fourth to sixth rounds of the seven-round draft, during which the NFL’s 32 teams will select 257 former college football players to join their rosters.
Round 1 starts Thursday at 7 p.m. central time. Rounds 2-3 begin Friday at 6 p.m. central. Rounds 4-7 commence Saturday at 11 a.m. local.
There will be no shortage of live coverage, with all rounds of the draft scheduled to be aired on multiple TV networks and streamed online, including at ABC, ESPN, the NFL Network, NFL.com, ABC.com and the ABC app, among other outlets.
During a Friday afternoon visit in the office of Charleston Mayor Sedrick Smith Sr. at City Hall, Prince shared how he will be spending his time during the upcoming NFL draft.
“We’ll probably just sit at home and I’ll watch it with my mom,” he noted, referring to JacQueline “Jackie” Prince of Charleston. “I’ll have my family cook, barbecue or something like that, try to make it a little get-together.”
Prince said he will be watching from the first round.
“I’m going to watch the first, because I’ve got some people I was working out with, like [LSU wide receiver and likely top-5 pick] Malik Nabers and others who I want to make sure I see and record and send [the video] to them to show respect.”
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Prince said the Indianapolis Colts, Jacksonville Jaguars and San Francisco 49ers have shown an interest in him, but not all at defensive back.
“San Francisco says I’m a wide receiver,” he noted.
Prince did play the position well — along with about a half-dozen others — for the CHS Tigers. But high school was quite a while ago.
“I’ve been out of receiver for a long time, so I’m probably a little rusty there,” he said. “But at corner, I’m ready.”
Based on projections, Saturday is the day that Prince is most likely to receive the all-important call from an NFL executive before hearing his name announced to a national television audience from the NFL draft stage.
"My agent gave me a kind of a range of where I might be going, so I've just got to wait until a certain team calls me, a certain team that likes me more than other teams," he said. "But certain different teams that probably have not shown me any interest probably have me on their draft board and can pick me before teams that actually have expressed interest."
No matter who picks him or what position they ask him to play, Prince said he expects to get on the field.
“If I’m picked and they see my full potential, I’m pretty sure any coach in the world would start me,” he noted. “As long as they see what I’ve got and I give it my all, I’m not worried. I kind of know what type of ability I have.”
Prince's soft-spoken voice and humble demeanor belie his obvious self-confidence and grit — valuable attributes for anyone, but essential assets in competitive sports.
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Cedric Terry, who coached Prince in local Robert Hill Youth Foundation football from age 8 to 12, said he saw the youngster had potential.
“He always was a great athlete from the first day he came out,” said Terry. “He was a little shy of the contact, but once he understood that the contact wouldn’t hurt him, he took off from there. Everything else, we know that he can do.”
Prince remembers “not knowing what I’m doing, just playing and running, having fun like a kid should anyway.”
In junior high at Charleston Middle School, he played quarterback under then head coach Wayne Mayhan.
During his freshman and sophomore years of 2015 and 2016, Prince and the CHS Tigers made back-to-back state championship game appearances under then head coach Scott Martin, losing both by a combined 6 points. Prince said those were bittersweet moments, but he relishes the memories and relationships created during those journeys.
After CHS, Prince, a four-star recruit, played one year at Ole Miss, appearing in all 12 games and tallying 25 tackles with two interceptions.
DeAntre Prince in his uniform as a member of the Northeast Mississippi Community College Tigers in September 2020. (Photo by Blake Long/NEMCC)
He then decided to leave Ole Miss and enroll for a year at Northeast Mississippi Community College — a move, he noted, that was designed to help him find his center during a time when he struggled with some self-admitted maturity issues. While playing football at the Booneville school in 2020, Prince racked up 25 tackles and was named all-conference as well as a National Junior College Athletic Association All-American.
He reenrolled at Ole Miss for the final three years of his college career, winning numerous accolades and honors for his play.
In 2023, Prince helped the Rebels achieve the program’s first-ever 11-win season, the record-breaking victory coming in a Peach Bowl romp over Penn State.
"We finally finished one off," he said of the bowl win.
Prince ended his Ole Miss career with 146 tackles, 27 pass breakups and six interceptions.
At the close of last season, he was invited to play in the East-West Shrine Bowl, a premier all-star game for college seniors who are NFL draft prospects.
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As one of 321 NFL hopefuls invited to this year’s NFL Scouting Combine in Indianapolis, Indiana, Prince excelled, tying for the fifth-fastest 40-yard dash time among defensive backs and leading all Combine prospects when he ran the 10-yard split in just 1.47 seconds.
Since the Ole Miss Pro Day on March 27, Prince said he has “just been working out and staying in shape so whenever it’s time to go, by rookie minicamp, I’ll be ready.”
The process of preparing for a potential life and career at the professional level has been intense, he added.
NFL team talent evaluators and background investigators have been nothing if not most meticulously thorough. Draftees are big investments, so the NFL wants no surprises.
“They do it all. They dig deep,” Prince said. “I was talking to one team — I think it was the Rams — and they asked me about something from when I was playing football at 7 or 8 years old. I think they told me my jersey number at that time. They were like, ‘You were number 11 playing receiver and wore a black and white uniform.’ I’m like, ‘How do you know that? I don’t even remember when I was 7 or 8 years old.’”
Prince said he has been OK with the vetting process, noting that his "journey has been pretty public" and he is "pretty much an open book."
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Prince said becoming the first NFL draftee from his home county would be a huge honor.
“That’s a goal all in itself,” he noted. “I watched so many great athletes — people I feel like were better than me — come through and not get to the end. I feel like I owe it to them. ... They kind of kept me on a straight arrow, made sure I knew the risks and the things I needed to do.”
Prince has used them for focus and added motivation.
“Being in Charleston, knowing it’s a football town, I grew up watching Cedric Truly and [now CHS] coach Kam [Kameron] Myers play,” he said. “Watching them, having role models like that to look up to, made me want to play and be the best I could be.”
Prince added that former CHS players “coach Kam, Deshagdrick Biggins, James Brown — all could be in the league. They didn’t get the opportunity, so I knew I had to lock in extra hard to get that opportunity.”
Reaching the goal also means being able to help provide financial security for his family and “make sure that everything’s OK at home,” he noted.
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Mayor Smith said Friday’s invitation for a visit was an opportunity to tell Prince “how proud we are of him, his accomplishments and things that he’s doing.”
He added that Prince can be an inspiration to a lot of youth, as well as adults.
After the draft, the city will reach back out to Prince with the goal of coordinating some type of public celebration for him, the mayor said.
"We want to recognize him, we want to congratulate him, and we definitely want to keep his name on that umbrella because he's an inspiration for Charleston."
Terry, who was part of Friday's conversation with Prince at the mayor's office, said Prince’s pending achievement will represent a mission accomplished for the Robert Hill Youth Foundation.
“When we started the youth league, we had so many great teams and great athletes at CHS, but we never played for a state championship, never had people play much for college. That was the whole goal with the Robert Hill Youth Foundation. So, we saw a state championship. We saw kids go play at the college level. Now, the last feat, we see somebody getting drafted. And so we say, mission is accomplished!”
Prince going to the NFL, Terry added, “will inspire all the other young kids to work hard and say, ‘Hey, if Tre can do it, I can do it.’ There are a lot of hidden gems here, and it’s a great accomplishment to see him get his name called.”
