Fontel Mines is an American Football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 tight end

Tight end

The tight end is a position in American football on the offense. The tight end is often seen as a hybrid position with the characteristics and roles of both an offensive lineman and a wide receiver. Like offensive linemen, they are usually lined up on the offensive line and are large enough to be...

 who is currently a free agent

Free agent

In professional sports, a free agent is a player whose contract with a team has expired and who is thus eligible to sign with another club or franchise....

. He was signed by the Chicago Bears

Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...

 as an undrafted free agent in 2007. He played college football

College football

College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...

 at Virginia

Virginia Cavaliers football

Virginia Cavaliers football is a college football program that competes in the NCAA Division I-FBS and the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference...

.

Early years

Mines attended Hermitage High School

Hermitage High School (Virginia)

Hermitage High is a public high school located in Henrico County, Virginia/Richmond, Virginia. Hermitage offers a great Social Studies, Languages, and Humanities program and a top tier Psychology program regarded as one of the best in the entire state of Virginia...

 in Richmond, Virginia

Richmond, Virginia

Richmond is the capital of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the United States. It is an independent city and not part of any county. Richmond is the center of the Richmond Metropolitan Statistical Area and the Greater Richmond area...

 and was a student and a letterman in football and basketball. In football, as a senior, he was a first-team Group AAA All-state selection and made 37 receptions for 674 yards and ten touchdowns.

College career

Mines played collegiately at the University of Virginia

Virginia Cavaliers football

Virginia Cavaliers football is a college football program that competes in the NCAA Division I-FBS and the Coastal Division of the Atlantic Coast Conference...

. He played in 42 games, starting 20. He had 68 career receptions for 737 yards and 5 touchdowns.

Chicago Bears

Mines was signed to the Chicago Bears

Chicago Bears

The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago, Illinois. They are members of the North Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League...

 practice squad on September 2, 2007. They signed him to the active roster on December 26, 2007.

After spending the 2008 season on the Bears' practice squad, Mines was re-signed to a future contract on December 29, 2008. He was waived/injured on August 25 and subsequently reverted to injured reserve

Injured reserve

The injured reserve list is a list of reserved players who are injured and unable to play for a period of time, used most prominently in the National Hockey League and National Football League . It is used because these leagues have a maximum number of players on the team roster, so placing a...

.

Mines was waived by the Bears on March 1, 2010.

External links

• Chicago Bears bio