Blake Campbell had zero regrets about his four years at Berry College.
He graduated from the private school located just outside of Rome, Georgia, and had some good moments on the basketball court for the Vikings, who finished first in the Southern Athletic Association regular-season standings all four years he was there and won the league’s postseason tournament every year except his sophomore season.
The former Walker Valley High School standout scored exactly 1,000 points during his Berry career, which was capped by being named the Southern Athletic Association’s player of the year for the 2023-24 season — his first as a regular starter — and helping the program reach the NCAA Division III tournament for the second time in his career.
Although the talented guard always wondered if his skill set would translate to higher levels of college basketball, he wasn’t really pursuing using his final season of eligibility until Mick Hedgepeth, Berry’s head coach his final two seasons — when Campbell’s full potential seemed to be unlocked — was hired to take over at the University of Alabama in Huntsville, a Division II program. (At UAH, Hedgepeth replaced John Shulman — a former head coach at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and McCallie School — after he left for Central Arkansas.)
Campbell, listed at 6-foot-4, 190 pounds on the UAH roster after graduating from Walker Valley in 2020 at “6 feet, probably 150 pounds,” was going to get his chance. And the self-admitted late bloomer has zero reasons to regret accepting the opportunity with the Chargers, who carry a No. 3 national ranking.