There wasn’t much for Chargers fans to cheer about in Los Angeles’ 2023 game against the Denver Broncos in Week 14.
A season after one of the most embarrassing playoff losses in NFL history, the Chargers came into the campaign motivated to avenge that defeat and reach their potential of contending for a championship. Instead, on this Sunday, they were 5-7, and their playoff chances were just about gone. SoFi Stadium, their home stadium, was covered in Denver orange by Broncos fans.
Then quarterback Justin Herbert suffered a season-ending right index finger fracture in the first quarter, and as he exited, so did the Chargers’ season.
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But amid a day and a season of disappointment, the organization gave reeling fans a reason to smile. At halftime, the team held a ceremony to induct tight end Antonio Gates into the Chargers Hall of Fame.
“To the city of San Diego,” Gates said, pausing as the Chargers contingent roared as loudly as it had that afternoon. “You supported me. You embraced a 22-year-old kid from Detroit, and you will always be my second home.”
Gates played 16 seasons in the NFL, 14 in San Diego and two in Los Angeles after the team relocated. That move is still a sore spot for some fans who were mum when Gates thanked Los Angeles and booed loudly when Gates thanked team owner Dean Spanos and the Spanos family.
While Gates never won a championship, he was partly responsible for ushering in an exciting era of Chargers football that featured some of the most successful seasons in franchise history. The roars that day for Gates were a reminder of how much Gates meant to a city that had embraced him as their own.
As Gates is inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame with Saturday’s enshrinement, many in San Diego will be cheering the loudest.
“He was a guy who just fit the city,” said David Droegemeier, a San Diego native and co-host of the “Locked on Chargers” podcast. “A guy who feels like he’s got to be from here even though he wasn’t. He was ours.”
From the beginning, Gates’ journey to the NFL seemed farfetched.
Upon leaving Detroit Central High School, Gates accepted a football scholarship from Michigan State, which was then led by coach Nick Saban. But Saban wouldn’t let Gates play both football and basketball. Gates left Michigan State and never played football in college.
After stops at Eastern Michigan and the College of the Sequoias, a community college in Visalia, California, Gates ended up at Kent State as a junior and became one of the best basketball players in program history. As a junior, Gates led Kent State, a 10-seed, to the Elite Eight in 2002, the deepest run the school has ever made in the NCAA tournament. His jersey — No. 44 — was retired in 2010, as Gates became the fourth men’s basketball player in school history to receive such an honor.
Despite Gates’ dominance at Kent State, he wasn’t projected to be an NBA player mainly because of his size; he was a 6-foot-4 power forward, a position where NBA players are on average about 5 inches taller. So, Gates turned back to football, working out for NFL teams, who were intrigued by his physical traits. The Chargers decided to sign him as an undrafted free agent in 2003, but he was a long shot to make the team.
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Linebacker Stephen Cooper, an undrafted free agent like Gates, was Gates’ roommate at the Holiday Inn during that 2003 training camp. As the Chargers began to make final cuts, Cooper remembers the team having two spots left, but he and Gates had convinced themselves that just one of them would make the team.
When they learned they both did, they had a muted celebration in their hotel room; it’s a moment Cooper will never forget, especially considering how much Gates would go on to accomplish as a tight end.
“We ran around the room trying not to be too loud and excited just because we didn’t want to be disrespectful to our other teammates who didn’t make it,” said Cooper, who played nine seasons for the Chargers. “Out of all the moments with Antonio, that’s one I remember the most.”
Gates’ success changed the tight end position. His basketball background was evident in how he boxed out defenders and high-pointed the football like he was getting a rebound on the hardwood.
Current Chargers coach Jim Harbaugh said Gates stands out as the first tight end to be the focal point of a team’s offense: “First guy I can remember catching 10, 12, 13, 14 balls in a game … greatest of all time.”
Gates’ achievements made teams at every level take chances on former basketball players. The most notable is tight end Jimmy Graham, who played one year of football after four years on the University of Miami’s basketball team. Graham was drafted in the third round by the New Orleans Saints and went on to become one of the league’s best tight ends. He played 13 seasons and made five Pro Bowls.
“Without [Gates], I wouldn’t have even been given this opportunity or been given the opportunity to play in college,” Graham told reporters in 2012. “He paved the way for me.”
While Gates’ size wasn’t a fit for NBA power forward, he made an ideal NFL tight end. He was too quick to be covered by most linebackers and too strong to be covered by defensive backs, putting D-coordinators in a bind each week.
“You knew if a team wants to go one-on-one with him, he’s going to kill them,” former Chargers safety Eric Weddle said. “He was a matchup nightmare.”
It didn’t take long for Gates to become one of the league’s best tight ends. He was a first-team All-Pro by his second season, the first of three consecutive selections. Gates’ breakout came in his second campaign, in 2004, when he finished with 964 yards and 13 touchdowns. In the first game that season, the Chargers faced the Houston Texans, with whom current Chargers offensive coordinator Greg Roman was the team’s quarterbacks coach. Gates caught every target, finishing with eight receptions for 123 yards in the win.
“It doesn’t happen very often where you go, ‘Who is this guy?'” Roman said with a smile. “But everybody on the sideline was going, ‘Who is this guy?'”
Gates is the NFL’s all-time leader in receiving touchdowns by a tight end (116) and the Chargers’ all-time leader in receptions (955) and receiving yards (11,841). Behind those stats are the many injuries his former teammates remember Gates playing through.
Ahead of the 2007 AFC Championship Game, Gates’ status was uncertain. He had dislocated his big toe in the Chargers’ win in the wild-card round over the Tennessee Titans; the injury was severe enough that he left the game on a medical cart. Still, Gates played through it in the Chargers’ divisional-round win over the Indianapolis Colts and their AFC Championship Game loss to the New England Patriots.
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Former Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman said the image of Gates ahead of the conference championship game on the training table, where he remembers doctors numbing Gates’ foot, sticks with him and is one of the many reasons Gates meant so much to the organization.
“From the ankle down, he couldn’t feel anything,” Merriman said. “And you think, man, [that] somebody of his caliber that’s already done so much in his career would just go and take that risk, my respect level for him at that point just went through the roof.”
While the Chargers are primarily associated with not living up to expectations and have never won a Super Bowl, they have had some of the league’s best players, including quarterback Philip Rivers, running back LaDainian Tomlinson, linebacker Junior Seau, wide receiver Lance Alworth, QB Dan Fouts and tight end Kellen Winslow.
Still, many of those stars went on to finish their careers elsewhere. Gates, Fouts and Winslow are the three in that group to play for the Chargers their entire careers, with Winslow playing nine seasons and Fouts 15. Gates’ 16 years as a Charger during perhaps the most transformative years of the franchise’s history, when the organization alienated many of its fans with the move to L.A., will always make Gates’ relationship with San Diego different.
“I think it is just really special to have somebody who started his career in San Diego and stayed with the team the entire time,” Droegemeier said. “But with Antonio, he was a guy who always did things the right way, and he was also just such a playmaker. It’s obviously really easy to resonate with those types of players.”
