Former KSU basketball star excels in NFL with Chargers
By Marla Ridenour, Beacon Journal staff writer
So if the A B-J is giving the MAC good press, why don't they take their own advice and COVER the MAC better?
Kent State basketball star Antonio Gates showed up for his campus workout with NFL scouts in April 2003 in a hoop sweat suit and high-tops.
It was just one month after he'd finished his senior season as an honorable mention All-American and 13 months after he'd led the Golden Flashes to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament. He'd sprained his ankle the weekend before at a pre-draft camp in Portsmouth, Va.
He hadn't spent months training for what seemed like a long-shot pro football audition, hadn't been coached on how to run the 40 or do the shuttle drill. He hadn't played the game since his days at Detroit Central High School.
KSU director of athletics Laing Kennedy remembered Gates nonchalantly saying, "I've got to go to the field house and run for NFL scouts."
Only five teams came to see whether a basketball player could make the transition to professional tight end, and only the Browns and the San Diego Chargers sent position coaches. What they saw was dazzling.
"It was amazing," recalled Kent State sports information director Jeff Schaefer, who attended the workout. "He ran just under a 4.7 on a bum ankle. In pass-blocking drills, you could see the raw talent there."
Chargers general manager A.J. Smith is thankful he took a chance and signed Gates as an undrafted free agent that May.
As the Chargers (10-3) visit the Browns on Sunday, Gates has been one of the biggest stories in the league in 2004. He needs one touchdown to tie the NFL's single-season record for touchdowns by a tight end. His 11 scores are tied for third-most in the NFL behind the Philadelphia Eagles' Terrell Owens (14) and the Indianapolis Colts' Marvin Harrison (13). Gates stands fourth in the AFC in receptions with 73 for 843 yards.
He's already broken the Chargers' single-season mark of 10 touchdown catches by a tight end, previously held by Kellen Winslow Sr. (1981) and Willie Frazier (1967). The fact that Winslow's name is associated with Gates will make Gates' trip to Cleveland all the more painful this time around.
Gates has become the playmaker the Browns thought they were getting when they moved up one spot in the first round to select tight end Kellen Winslow Jr. in April. Winslow, who cost the Browns their second-round pick, broke his leg in the second game.
Kennedy is well aware of the what-ifs if the Browns had signed Gates out of their own back yard for the rookie minimum.
"They could have had (Ben) Roethlisberger and Gates for a whole lot less money," Kennedy said, referring to the Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback out of Miami University.
Gates said the Browns wanted to bring him to training camp, but he was won over by Chargers tight ends coach Tim Brewster. The Browns sent then-tight ends coach Steve Hagen to Gates' workout. Hagen, now quarterbacks coach, refused an interview request this week. Schaefer said the buzz around the KSU campus was that the Browns would have drafted Gates if they'd had a seventh-round pick, but they'd surrendered it in a trade.
"I think it was me making a decision to come to San Diego moreso than the Browns not being interested," Gates said. "I felt like the Browns were interested in a way, but I felt a sense that San Diego's tight end coach was more genuine and straightforward. I wanted to go into a straightforward situation, knowing what I was getting into at the time."
Gates wasn't an instant sensation. He started 11 games as a rookie and caught 24 passes for 389 yards and two touchdowns, but only three catches for 38 yards came before Nov. 9. In early October, Gates said he realized he could compete in the league.
"Training camp was a struggle," he said. "I had different things I had to learn. Probably the fifth game I got into trusting one another -- the players' trust in me and I trusted what the coaches were teaching. At that point, I tried to do the things necessary to become a better football player."
Teamed this year with quarterback Drew Brees and running back LaDainian Tomlinson, Gates has been dynamite from the start. Besides his big numbers, Gates is tied for the NFL lead in third-down receptions with 27 for 328 yards and five scores. Lately opponents have been double-teaming him or roughing him up at the line, and he's caught just four passes for 48 yards and no scores in the past two games.
"Gates is the real deal. There's no question about that," Browns interim coach Terry Robiskie said. "He's a playmaker. They put him everywhere. They do a great job trying to match him up on linebackers, match him up on defensive backs. He's taken so much pressure off everyone. He's the guy."
Robiskie said Chargers offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, the former Indiana coach, was his roommate with the Washington Redskins.
"A lot of what he's doing with Gates is what we had set early in the year for Kellen Winslow," Robiskie said. "It's kind of the year you were looking for with Kellen."
Chargers coach Marty Schottenheimer, the former Browns coach, probably didn't envision this from Gates.
"The one unknown for any young player is how quickly they can develop, and it certainly relates to a young man who has not played football in five years," Schottenheimer said. "I think the quality that stands out besides his athletic ability is the fact that he's very confident and things don't bother him if things don't happen to be going his way."
Gates hasn't shocked Kent State basketball coach Jim Christian. Gates is one of two NFL players Christian has coached -- he recruited Buffalo linebacker London Fletcher out of Cleveland's Villa Angela-St. Joseph when he was at St. Francis (Pa.) from 1992-94.
Gates is 6-foot-4 and 260 pounds, and Christian believes he could have played in the NBA if he were a little taller.
"I'm not surprised he's had the results he's had. I am surprised how quickly it's come," Christian said. "There's no doubt he's a tremendous athlete, but when you go from one sport to another there's a learning curve.
"I look at his hands. And in basketball he could guard anybody on the court. It was easy to see him playing good football. It's a very rare athlete with that size and mass who can move like that."
As Kennedy observed: "He's got quickness and speed and hands -- beautiful, big, soft hands. Even when you see him goofing around with a football or basketball, you see him making unbelievable moves and you say, `That's a little different.' When you think of a natural, he's it."
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