Four men will be formally enshrined in the Pro Football Hall of Fame on Saturday in Canton, Ohio. Yahoo Sports will take a relatively short look at each legend and how he reached football immortality.
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There’s a typical path for NFL players. They play college football, get drafted and then earn their way onto a roster.
Antonio Gates wasn’t drafted. And he didn’t play college football. Somehow he became a Pro Football Hall of Famer.
Gates’ path to the Hall of Fame is literally unlike any other. The longtime Chargers tight end is the first one to make the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player without appearing in a college football game, according to the Akron Beacon Journal. There’s at least a little more history for undrafted players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Before Gates, 22 players went from undrafted to a bust in Canton.
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There are very few players through NFL history who simply made it on a pro roster without playing a down of college football. Gates became one of the best ever without a college football background. Some Hall of Famers played at small schools, and a few came up through junior college. There are some Hall of Famers who played at a school that discontinued its football program, and a few played at schools that don’t exist anymore. But all of them played football on that level.
Most players in the Pro Football Hall of Fame are also in the College Football Hall of Fame. Usually great pro football players were great college players, too. Gates was a great college player. Just not at football.
Antonio Gates’ basketball background
Gates was part of a legendary basketball team at Kent State. In his junior season, he led the Golden Flashes to their first conference championship, then on an improbable run to the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament. He averaged 16 points and 8.1 rebounds a game as a junior, and then 20.6 points, 7.7 rebounds and 4.1 assists as a senior. He’s one of five Kent State basketball players to have their number retired by the school.
Gates was undersized to be considered an NBA power forward, at 6-foot-4, 255 pounds, but had the size to be an NFL tight end. He also had a football background, though not in college. He was recruited by Nick Saban to play football at Michigan State, but he wanted to play basketball too and Saban wouldn’t let him, leading to Gates transferring. When Gates was done with hoops at Kent State, he tried out for NFL teams. The size and athletic ability had many teams interested in him as a project, and the Chargers signed him after the 2003 NFL Draft.
It’s hard enough for an undrafted rookie to make it in the NFL, and much harder for one that hadn’t played football since high school. But Gates made the team and held his own as a rookie, bringing in 24 passes for 389 yards while starting 11 games. That alone would be an unbelievable story.
Then, in Gates’ second season, he was the best tight end in the NFL, less than two years removed from scoring more than 20 points per game in basketball.
Gates sets records at tight end
Gates was first-team All-Pro in 2004, setting an NFL record for tight ends with 13 touchdown catches. That was the first of three straight seasons in which he was recognized as the best tight end in the NFL.
Gates finished his career with 116 touchdown receptions, seventh-most in NFL history and the most for any tight end. He had five more TD catches than Tony Gonzalez. Gates is the Chargers’ all-time leader in receptions (955) and yards (11,841). He also paved the way for other college basketball players to get opportunities from NFL teams looking for the next Antonio Gates.
But, in many ways, Gates was one of one. We might never see another player to not play a down of college football and end up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame as a player. Gates’ journey was borderline miraculous.
“I think it was just a surreal moment for the most part because you work so hard to reach a level in sports,” Gates told Chargers.com about his election in the Hall of Fame. “Then you talk about the Hall of Fame, it’s like a funnel, and you know how many people get out of the bottom of that funnel. It starts wide and gets really small.
“To be sitting in football heaven, words can’t really describe it.”
