ESPN analyst, NFL wide receiver and Florida Gators legend Chris Doering joined the Little Rock Touchdown Club this Tuesday to talk about his career, from walk-on player to record-breaker, as well as what comes after retirement in the life of a football player.
Doering explained that he had always wanted to play football for the Gators since he was five years old. Yet despite a senior year of high school where he was all-state in football, basketball and baseball, as well as a winner and MVP in the state basketball championship, Doering wasn’t offered an athletic scholarship to the University of Florida, or to any other college. Instead, he joined the Gators as a walk-on, though his performance as a freshman quickly convinced the school to redshirt him and offer a scholarship.
“I’m grateful for the path that I was forced to go on because I think a lot of guys coming out of high school, they’re told how great they are, they’re given the scholarship and they think they’ve arrived,” Doering said. “They don’t work hard, they become complacent and they’re not able to achieve the potential that they may have had. For me, it was always this chip on my shoulder. I had this scarlet letter, so to speak, where anytime they wrote about me, it was ‘walk-on Chris Doering,’ and I was determined to change that narrative.”
Doering proceeded to shatter both school and SEC records, setting a single-season conference record for completing 17 touchdown catches in 1995 and the record for most touchdown catches with 31. Though that record was eventually broken in the SEC more than two decades later, it still stands in Florida Gators football. Doering noted, however, that he was unable to entirely change the narrative as he had hoped, as he was still frequently referred to as “former walk-on Chris Doering.”
Doering also played alongside another Gators star and Heisman Trophy winner Danny Wuerffel.
“Here I was, a walk-on just a few weeks earlier now starting my first game for my beloved Gators in the SEC,” Doering said. “Earlier in that fourth quarter, I catch my first collegiate touchdown and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, this is everything I ever dreamt of as a kid.’ And little did I know, I come back and catch the game-winner with three seconds left. That was my second of 31 touchdown receptions that I had. But that was thrown by Danny Wuerffel. And in that game, Terry Dean and Danny Wuerffel were back and forth, because they combined to throw seven interceptions and we were losing 20 to 17 with about eight seconds to go in that game. There was no overtime back then, so we could either kick a field goal and settle for a tie or we could go for the win. And obviously, you guys know the reputation of Coach Spurrier – we went for the win. Danny threw that touchdown to me and we’ve forever been linked in Gator history. And there’s not a better person to be linked with.”
Doering’s team in 1995 was the only one in the history of the University of Florida’s football program to go undefeated. In 1996, he got to fulfill another of his life-long dreams when he was drafted into the NFL. Yet like all football players must, he eventually retired.
“It’s a really tough transition for all athletes, whatever level you play at, once you get done playing and try to figure out what your next stage of life is,” Doering said. “As I mentioned, growing up as a kid, all I wanted to do was play football for the Gators and play in the NFL. I had done that and it was over with by the time I was 32 years old, so a lot of life left to live. It’s almost a blessing and a curse, because what do you find that you’re as passionate about as what you grew up getting to do? Most people don’t have that ability to do something that they dreamt about their entire life and everything kind of pales in comparison.”
For Doering, that passion after retirement came in two forms. He opened Chris Doering Mortgage in 2007 – just before the housing market crash, yet the business celebrated its 16th anniversary earlier this year. He has also maintained a strong connection to the world of football by working as an analyst for ESPN, which gives him a very good reason to watch football all day long.
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