The Inside Story of Antonio Gates’ Hall of Fame Career

Eric Smith

Antonio Gates’ moment is almost here.

The legendary Chargers tight end will be enshrined into the Pro Football Hall of Fame this weekend, with the four-man Class of 2025 bumping the total number of inductees to 382.

But there’s a good chance Gates’ path to Canton, Ohio might be the most unlikely of anyone.

Gates will become just the 23rd undrafted free agent to have his bust immortalized in the Hall.

He’s also the very first player in the Hall of Fame to have never played a down of college football.

Gates’ NFL resum is Hall of Fame worthy, of course. No tight end in history can match his 116 career touchdown catches.

Not to mention his 955 receptions and 11,841 receiving yards, both of which rank fourth all-time among players at his position.

But the journey? The story of how Gates went from college to the Chargers to Canton?

Gates himself almost doesn’t believe it.

“It’s like I’m telling a fiction story,” Gates told Chargers.com this summer. “To tell somebody they can come to the NFL and not play college football but then make the team and then start and then make the Pro Bowl and be All-Pro your second year and then be the all-time touchdown leader …

“It’s not even a story you can make up. The chances? The odds? They’re crazy,” Gates continued.

He later added: “When I think back, it’s not about the games or the stats. It’s about the journey. Never in a million years would I have thought something like this would happen.”

With Gates set to step into the spotlight, it’s time to dive into the almost unbelievable tale.

And Gates himself is ready to tell it.

Here is the inside story of his Hall of Fame career.

Hoop dreams

Truth be told, Antonio Gates kind of detested the game of football back in high school.

He was a dominant basketball player from Day 1 at Detroit’s Central High School, the kind of top-rated recruit that drew attention from around the country.

“I had so many accolades in the game of basketball. But football, I was a late bloomer,” Gates said. “And I didn’t like the things you had to go through like training camp.”

Gates, who played two years of varsity football, wanted to go to Michigan State.

“Nick Saban recruited me out of high school, but so did Tom Izzo,” Gates said, referring to two legendary coaches in their respective sports.

He enrolled with the Spartans but eventually ended up at Eastern Michigan and then College of the Sequoias, a junior college in California.

Stan Heath, who had recruited Gates to Michigan State as an assistant basketball coach, had since become the head coach at Kent State.

Gates was sold, even if it meant his third school in three years.

He made an immediate impact by helping 10th-seeded Golden Flashes make an improbable run to the Elite Eight in the NCAA Tournament.

It seemed like he was on track for the NBA.

“We were so good in basketball, in my mind I was going pro,” Gates said. “I was dominating, we went to the Elite Eight and I had averaged about 20 points in the tournament.”

Gates returned for his senior season at Kent State as the team’s top player. Heath, however, had jumped to Arkansas. The team couldn’t replicate a 30-win season from the year before and missed the NCAA Tournament.

Football, meanwhile, continued to lurk in the background.

Dean Pees had helped recruit Gates to Michigan State a few years earlier as the Spartans’ defensive coordinator. Now Kent State’s head football coach, he kept pressing the 6-foot-4, 255-pound Gates to try out the gridiron.

Gates now admits he thought about it. With Joshua Cribbs at quarterback and James Harrison on defense, the Golden Flashes had NFL-level talent on the roster.

And, according to Gates, Pees was ready to roll out the red carpet and modify his schedule so he didn’t have to endure grueling camp practices.

He still didn’t bite.

“I was in a space where there was unknown,” Gates said. “I didn’t want to just be a part of something when I was everything on the court.”

Gates’ future on the hardwood, however, would soon begin to waver.

Football comes calling

Shortly after Gates’ senior basketball season at Kent State, he turned his focus to the 2003 NBA Draft.

The vibe from teams, Gates said, was mixed. It seemed as if nobody could figure out where to slot him.

Some teams wanted him to slim down and drop more than 30 pounds.

“I could not lose any weight, dude,” Gates said with a laugh. “I was 255 and couldn’t lose any weight.”

Others put him through odd drills and brought up the subject of him changing positions.

“He was a man without a position in basketball,” said Tim Brewster, the Chargers tight ends coach from 2002-2004.

Gates, who had devoted his entire life to hoops, felt lost. And he was ready to perhaps give this football thing a try.

“It was kind of like prom, right? You want to go with this person, but another person wants to go with you,” Gates explained. “I wanted to go with basketball, but [football] is who wanted to go with me.

“Subconsciously, I remember telling myself that I really couldn’t do anything wrong with football,” Gates added. “My height [for football] was great. My weight was great. Speed, reaction, everything was great.”

Brewster, who was entering his second season as the Bolts tight end coach, had been tipped off about Gates’ incredible athletic ability.

Brewster watched Gates’ basketball tape from his junior season against blue-blood programs in Kentucky and Indiana.

Gates had scored 22 points in each game. Brewster immediately saw the potential.

“99 percent of the time in those situations, it’s probably not real good,” Brewster explained. “But I evaluated the tape, and he had a football body.

“His trunk from the lower half down was just monstrous,” Brewster added. “And the way he cleared people playing basketball and high-pointed the ball, he was different that way.”

Brewster had been at Texas before joining the Bolts. And he leapt for the NFL after helping recruit quarterback Vince Young to the Longhorns.

Brewster used the same approach with Gates, only now he was trying to convince him to truly give football a chance. Especially because the sport was always somewhere out there in the back of his mind.

“It constantly came around. No matter what I did on the court people would say, ‘You should play football.’ It’s kind of like now,” Gates said with a loud laugh.

“No matter what I did in football,” Gates added, “People love to say, ‘Well, he used to play basketball.’ That’s all I hear now. I’m going into the Hall of Fame and it’s like, ‘You know he was basketball guy?!'”

At the time, Gates was juggling a hectic schedule that included both NBA and NFL workouts.

“I had an NBA workout on Tuesday and then the Chargers on Friday,” Gates said. “It was the craziest thing ever.”

Oh yeah, about that football workout.

Kent State had organized a Pro Day of sorts for Gates.

Brewster, who was locked in on Gates by now, was the only NFL tight end coach to show up.

A few hours later, he was sold for good.

“There were only a couple people left but I had seen everything I’d needed to see. This guy right here was legit,” Brewster said.

Gates added: “The Chargers came by themselves. But then word got around.”

Hell yeah it did.

Kent State then organized a second workout for Gates to show off for NFL teams.

The problem?

Gates, who was still training for the NBA Draft, had tweaked his knee at the Portsmouth Invitational Tournament, the annual pre-NBA combine showcase for college seniors.

And when that second workout came around?

“I bombed,” Gates said. “Stunk it up I was only a 60-percent version of what I could do.”

You can bet that Brewster wasn’t that mad about the performance.

“I didn’t want him working out again,” Brewster chuckled. “At that point, I knew what I had. We could only screw it up.”

Gates recalled a similar story.

“When I came for the second workout and all these scouts and teams were there, I couldn’t run like I did the first time,” Gates said. “But Brewster told me, ‘I’ve seen you. Just do what you can do.’

“I’m trying to do stuff and move around and teams are like, ‘Why did we come to see this guy? This guy ain’t that good.’ But Brewster saw me the time I wasn’t hurt,” Gates added.

By April, Gates was sold on the NFL. And Brewster was sold on Gates.

“I go to the [second] workout and fly back to San Diego,” Brewster said. “But [former Chargers Head Coach] Marty Schottenheimer tells me, ‘Brew, we are not using a draft pick on a guy that didn’t play college football.’ I said, ‘Marty, this guy right here is different.’

“I was hoping for a seventh-round pick or some type of supplemental deal,” Brewster continued. “Marty said that if he made it through the draft then he would turn me loose on him.”

“I recruited [Gates] like I did Vince Young. I recruited Antonio, recruited his family,” Brewster added. “So, when the draft was over, there was no doubt where he was going.”

Now Brewster just had to get Gates on the Chargers, something that took some convincing within the organization. Heck, it wasn’t like they had college football tape to evaluate.

“I can very specifically remember one of our scouts reading an evaluation of him that was based purely off of his basketball tape,” said Chargers President of Football Operations John Spanos, who was a scout back then.

“I can remember talking about the way he rebounds the ball and various things like that,” Spanos added. “For me, it was very unique to hear that type of report. Then of course, we were able add him after the draft.”

Sure enough, Brewster and the Bolts faxed Gates a contract immediately at the conclusion of the 2003 NFL Draft.

Gates got other offers, too. But he knew where he was headed despite only a meager $2,000 signing bonus.

“I’m sure that’s the cheapest they’ve ever gave somebody,” said Gates, who would later be the highest-paid tight end in the league.

“But Tim Brewster was adamant,” Gates added. “He was like, ‘This guy is it!’ But they sent me a contract instantly right after the draft. Instantly. I got that fax right away.”

Gates was headed to the NFL. And now the real work was about to begin.

A raw NFL prospect

Let’s be honest here.

Gates didn’t waltz into offseason practices looking like a future Hall of Famer.

But he was also quick to showcase some of athletic ability that Brewster had gushed about to anyone in the building who would listen.

“We knew he was raw. There was no question he was raw,” said Hall of Fame running back LaDainian Tomlinson. “But there are certain things you couldn’t teach that he was already doing on Day 1.

“Things like using his body to ward off a linebacker and that little shimmy shake off the line of scrimmage just like you do in basketball,” Tomlinson added. “He had that right away. This kid was raw, but he had a chance to be pretty special.”

Ben Leber, a former Chargers linebacker, added: “I’m not going to say I knew immediately he was a Hall of Famer. But you saw this constant desire to work. You knew he was going to be good.”

Even Gates himself had tempered expectations upon arriving to the Bolts.

“Make the practice squad,” Gates said. “I looked at the salaries. My boys [from Detroit] were all construction workers or in waste management.

“If I make the practice squad, I was making more than them. And I was OK with that. Practice squad was my goal,” Gates added.

Plus, now that Gates had left basketball in the rearview mirror, there was now an inner drive that burned inside him. He had to be right, to prove to everyone that he had chosen the correct sport.

That desire never left him during his eventual 16-year career.

“I was fearful of getting cut and going back home,” Gates said. “I gave up so much [with basketball] to be here. I was literally afraid because I had no other options. There was never a time where I felt safe.”

Once Gates did arrive in San Diego, Brewster was ready to go. They worked and worked and worked.

The physical traits were there for Gates from the moment he stepped onto the field.

Everyone agrees on that now, whether it was simply his size and frame, his ability to box out a defender with the ball in the air or his subtle shiftiness in a certain route.

“Every time we put him in a competitive situation, he kicked ass. Every time,” Brewster said. “There was never a moment when I didn’t feel like I had something absolutely amazing in my hands to work with.

“There’s just a special quality about him,” Brewster added. “We’re talking about a dude, man. And he never flinched.”

That’s because Gates was perhaps more mentally tough than almost any player Ed McGuire has seen in his 25-plus year tenure in the Bolts front office.

“I remember his first camp with us from minicamp all the way to training camp,” said McGuire, now the Chargers Executive Vice President of Football Administration/Player Finance. “Tim Brewster was his position coach, and he was relentless.

“Whatever he gave Gatesy, he took it all and competed his ass off every day,” McGuire continued. “It just shows you the work ethic he had, but also taking to the coaching.

“Because Tim was relentless with him but really got him up to speed as an NFL player,” McGuire added. “Gatesy took it and never said, ‘Boo.’ If he had to do a drill 10 times, he’d do it and do it to the best of his ability. That was really impressive to see.”

In the locker room, Gates’ new teammates spent the 2003 offseason trying to get a read on this hulking former basketball player who looked like a capable NFL tight end.

A year before Gates joined the team, the Bolts drafted tight end Jordan Peelle out of Oregon. Peelle joined a tight end room that also included Stephen Alexander.

Peelle recently recalled a conversation the group had in the tight end room at some point during the offseason.

“[Gates] told a story about how his dad had posed a question to him like, ‘Why can’t you do it?’ It wasn’t arrogance,” Peelle said, “Just, ‘You’re here, why can’t you make the team, why can’t you excel at this?’

“That story, I always remember it, especially now that I’m on the side of coaching and I’m around players,” said Peelle, who is now the Buccaneers tight ends coach. “The mental attitude and mental mindset is such a powerful tool.

“He right away had that,” Peelle added. “He was never arrogant; I can’t emphasize that enough. He knew that it was not going to be easy but believed he could do it. And obviously he did it.”

Leber recalled getting a similar vibe from Gates.

“He thought highly of himself but not in an a-hole way. He wasn’t cocky about it,” Leber said. “He was just matter of fact. He knew the chances of making it to the NBA from Kent State were less than making it in the NFL.

“It wasn’t long before my eyes and Justin’s and Stephen’s we were like, ‘This guy is legit.’ He worked so hard and was humble in his approach,” Leber added. “He knew he didn’t know anything and didn’t have any bad habits or bad attitude. He knew he had to come in work and learn every day and you definitely saw that.”

Gates also possessed a tangible toughness, but quipped that might have been an accidental quality.

Schottenheimer was known to harp on players that they couldn’t make the club in the tub, a common phrase that implies a player needs to stay healthy to perform.

Gates took it a bit too literally.

“I didn’t get the figure of speech,” Gates said. “I dislocated my finger the first training camp practice and popped it right back in place. I said, ‘Wrap it up man, I can’t get cut.’

“All my skin in the game had been in basketball. I was on Plan B, so it was whatever I had to do,” Gates added.

By the time the regular season rolled around, Gates found himself on the active roster.

He was officially in the NFL.

Off and running

Gates made a steady progression from there.

His first NFL game? Week 2 at home against the Broncos.

His first NFL catch? Week 4 at the Raiders.

His first NFL start? Week 5 against the Jaguars.

His first NFL touchdown? A 4-yard score in Week 10 at home against the Vikings.

His first 100-yard game? Week 15 against the Packers.

“They didn’t see the plays I had to make [in practice] and the stuff I had to do to get in there,” Gates said. “For me to get to a point where I’m starting as a rookie I couldn’t comprehend it then but I know it now the degree of difficulty was insane.

“I was making crazy ass catches in practice. I almost forced them to a point where it was like, ‘We’ve got to play him,'” Gates added.

Gates simply kept stacking the days, which turned into weeks, which turned into months, which turned into a successful rookie season.

“I challenged him to be the best,” Brewster said. “If we’re going to do this thing, let’s do it right. Let’s compete every single day.”

His final rookie stat line was 24 catches for 389 yards and two scores.

It might as well have been an All-Pro season considering Gates started from absolute Square 1.

But his teammates senses that something special was percolating throughout the season.

“We’d go to jam him at the line and he was OK with the physicality,” Leber said. “I distinctly remember at the top of the route, he had this little shimmy, kind of like a basketball shimmy where he’s trying to cross somebody up.

“He’d do that at the top of the route and it would just throw you off,” Leber added. “It took awhile to adjust to his style because it was like guarding a high-end basketball player 1-on-1, which is not typically what these tight ends are.”

Peelle recently recalled that it was awesome to watch his teammate and friend’s progression during that 2003 season.

“I always supported him 100 percent. If I saw something, I would try to help him out,” Peelle said. “I don’t know how much I did or not, but it was fun to watch. You like being around guys that are really good.

“I’m not playing as much because of that, but it was still fun to watch him do it,” Peelle added. “He is such a good person and he supported everybody, so it’s easy to root for a guy like that and to be happy for a guy like that even at your position.”

The NFL’s best tight end

Gates’ career took off like a rocket in 2004, his second season in the league.

He caught 81 passes for 964 yards and 13 touchdowns, the latter of which then set a record for single-season scores by a tight end.

Gates earned the first of three straight First-Team All-Pro selections, as well as the first of eight consecutive Pro Bowl honors.

As the season accrued, Gates established himself as the league’s best tight end, all while revolutionizing the position along the way.

The career stats are mind boggling, with most of them ranking as the best ever for any tight end ever.

We’re talking about 21 multi-touchdown games, eight seasons with eight-plus receiving touchdowns and 39 career touchdown receptions on third down.

Then there’s Gates’ prowess in the red zone, where he tallied 93 touchdown catches from the 20-yard line and in. For reference, those 93 scores would rank 14th all-time on their own … and are one more than Rob Gronkowski had in his entire career.

“The guy has the most touchdowns ever by a tight end,” Gronkowski told Chargers.com. “Everyone knows me as the red-zone threat, and I still don’t even have as many touchdowns as Antonio Gates.

“That speaks volumes right there because I wanted that record and I didn’t even come close,” Gronkowski said. “I’m off by 24 touchdowns still to this day.”

Brewster laughed when asked about Gates’ dynamic ability to score near the end zone.

“We totally exploited our opponents with how we utilized him in the red zone,” Brewster said. “His ball skills were absolutely stupid. Absolutely stupid. He didn’t have any drops either, buddy.

“His determination when we got down in the red zone, he wanted the ball. He called for the ball,” Brewster added. “When we put the red-zone installation in every week, he was fired up about it because he’d say, ‘Good, I’m going to score on that one right there.'”

A Hall of Famer

As Gates prepares to be honored this weekend in Canton, he’s expecting a large contingent of former teammates to be there.

There’s nowhere else they’d rather be. Not only to celebrate Gates the player, but also Antonio the person.

“For him to do what he’s done is impressive and it couldn’t have happened to a better guy,” Peelle said. “It’s one of those things that you’re so happy for somebody who accomplished what he accomplished.

“I can’t say enough good things about the guy and it’s not just cause you’re interviewing me,” Peelle added. “I say it to everyone.”

Brewster said: “He’s a wonderful human being. Just so much class with this guy.”

Leber added: “I just look at him with such admiration and respect.”

Philip Rivers has some thoughts on Gates, too.

The two teamed up for 89 touchdowns, the second-most in NFL history by a quarterback-tight end duo.

But what Rivers remembers isn’t Gates’ skillset or his accolades. It’s friendship and bond the two forged together sitting next to each other in the locker room for their NFL careers.

“It was unique, and he and I would talk about it,” said Rivers. “Here I am, a small-town [kid from] north Alabama and he’s [from] Detroit.

“Our childhoods may have been so very different and routes taken different to get to where we were but there we are sitting side-by-side in San Diego for 15 years,” Rivers continued. “And what we found out is we had way more in common probably than we didn’t.

“That’s the cool part, to me, about an NFL locker room and about these bonds that you build as you go,” Rivers added. “We’re a lot more alike than we are different. We had great conversations about life and about children and then a lot about ball. There was a great amount of trust.”

Gates will give his Hall of Fame speech Saturday afternoon on stage in Canton.

He’ll likely thank his family, friends, teammates and coaches for helping him reach the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

But the journey was his. And it’s one the NFL may never see again.

“I’m still wrapping my head around it all,” Gates said. “It was such an incredible sequence of things that transpired leading up to this point. I still think, ‘How did I get here?’

“It’s not like I planned this. It just happened,” Gates added. “There’s no way you can script it.”