Otis James McDuffie (born December 2, 1969) is a former American college and professional football player who was a wide receiver in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for eight seasons. He played college football for Penn State University, and earned All-American honors. A first-round pick in the

1993 NFL Draft The 1993 NFL draft was the procedure by which National Football League teams selected amateur college football players. It is officially known as the NFL Annual Player Selection Meeting. The draft was held April 25–26, 1993, at the Marriot Ma ...

, he played professionally for the NFL's

Miami Dolphins The Miami Dolphins are a professional American football team based in the Miami metropolitan area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member team of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) East division. The team p ...

Early years

McDuffie was born in

Marion, Ohio Marion is a city in and the county seat of Marion County, Ohio, United States. The municipality is located in north-central Ohio, approximately north of Columbus. The population was 35,999 at the 2020 census, slightly down from 36,837 at the ...

. He attended

Hawken School Hawken School is an independent, coeducational, college preparatory day school in Northeast Ohio. Hawken currently has two main campuses, the Lower and Middle Schools in Lyndhurst and the Upper School in Chester Township, plus a third, an urb ...

Gates Mills, Ohio Gates Mills is a village in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States. The population was 2,270 at the 2010 census. Gates Mills is a suburb of Cleveland and was originally part of Mayfield Township. The village was named for Halsey Gates, the propri ...

, excelling in football,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

track and field Track and field is a sport that includes athletic contests based on running, jumping, and throwing skills. The name is derived from where the sport takes place, a running track and a grass field for the throwing and some of the jumping eve ...

and baseball. He set Hawken's record for all-purpose yards with 7,302 in his high school career. In 1986, McDuffie returned an interception 108 yards, an unofficial

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

state record. During his senior year in 1987, he was named the A-AA

Player of the year Several sports leagues honour their best player with an award called Player of the Year (POY) . In the United States, this type of award is usually called a Most Valuable Player award. Association football In association football, this award is he ...

. For the 1987 high school football season, he scored 136 points (21

touchdowns A touchdown (abbreviated as TD) is a scoring play in gridiron football. Whether running, passing, returning a kickoff or punt, or recovering a turnover, a team scores a touchdown by advancing the ball into the opponent's end zone. In Amer ...

) ahead of future professional football players

Desmond Howard Desmond Kevin Howard (born May 15, 1970) is an American former football wide receiver who played in the National Football League (NFL) for 11 seasons. He played college football at Michigan, where he won the Heisman Trophy as a senior. Howard w ...

and Robert Smith.News-herald.com
His number 32 is retired at Hawken School and '' The News-Herald'' named McDuffie the number 3 player of the 20th century in Northeast Ohio.

Memorabilia A souvenir (), memento, keepsake, or token of remembrance is an object a person acquires for the memories the owner associates with it. A souvenir can be any object that can be collected or purchased and transported home by the traveler as a m ...

from McDuffie's days playing Marion Midget Football are featured in an exhibit entitled "A Passion to Play" at the

Marion County Historical Society The Marion County Historical Society is located in Marion, Ohio, United States. In addition to operating Heritage Hall, a comprehensive museum dedicated to the preservation of Marion County Ohio history, the Society also operates the Rinker-How ...

College career

McDuffie attended Pennsylvania State University, and played for coach

Joe Paterno Joseph Vincent Paterno (; December 21, 1926 – January 22, 2012), sometimes referred to as JoePa, was an American college football player, athletic director, and coach. He was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions from 1966 to 2 ...

Penn State Nittany Lions football The Penn State Nittany Lions team represents the Pennsylvania State University in college football. The Nittany Lions compete in the NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision as a member of the Big Ten Conference, which they joined in 1993 af ...

team. He wore the number 24 for the

Nittany Lions The Penn State Nittany Lions are the athletic teams of Pennsylvania State University, except for the women's basketball team, known as the Lady Lions. The school colors are navy blue and white. The school mascot is the Nittany Lion. The interc ...

. He set several single-season and career receiving records, as well as all-purpose yards records. His performance in Penn State's 1992 Fiesta Bowl victory over

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked state in the Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the 36th-largest by area and the 15th-most populous of the 50 states. It is bordered by Kentucky to th ...

on January 1, 1992 garnered him the game's offensive MVP. McDuffie also played one season of varsity

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

in 1990 while at Penn State. He still holds the PSU record for stolen bases in a single game with 4, and is in the top 10 for stolen bases in a single season.2013 Penn State Baseball Yearbook
/ref> McDuffie was drafted by the then California Angels in the 41st round of the 1991 Major League Baseball Draft but did not sign. He earned a

Bachelor of Science A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University o ...

degree in labor and industrial relations from Penn State in 1992.

Professional career

The Miami Dolphins selected McDuffie in the first round (25th pick overall) of the

. He returned punts and was a reserve wide receiver before earning the starting spot for the Dolphins. During his formative years with the Dolphins, McDuffie became known as Dan Marino's favorite receiver. His 415 career catches are fourth all-time in Dolphins history. In 1998, McDuffie caught 90 passes, leading the NFL in that category. He was the first Dolphin to achieve this mark (since achieved by Jarvis Landry in 2017). That same year, McDuffie became the first player in NFL history to record at least 90 receptions and 10 punt returns in a season without a fumble.

Antonio Brown Antonio Tavaris Brown Sr. (born July 10, 1988), nicknamed "AB", is an American football wide receiver who is a free agent, and an American rapper. Raised in Liberty City, Miami, Brown attended Miami Norland High School. He played college ...

of Pittsburgh in 2016 is the only player to do it since. With the exception of Mark Clayton and

Mark Duper Mark "Super" Duper (born January 25, 1959) is an American former professional football player who was a wide receiver for the Miami Dolphins of the National Football League (NFL) from 1982 to 1992. He played collegiately at Northwestern State ...

, McDuffie caught more passes thrown by Marino than any other Dolphin receiver. He played his entire career in Miami, retiring in 2000 because of a nagging toe injury. Nearly ten years later, McDuffie would win a Medical malpractice lawsuit related to that career-ending toe injury. On May 5, 2010,

Miami-Dade County, Florida Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Florida. The county had a population of 2,701,767 as of the 2020 census, making it the most populous county in Florida and the seventh-most populous county in ...

jurors ordered a former Dolphins

team physician The team physician for a sports team is the physician who is in charge of coordinating the medical staff and medical services for a sports team. They are also subject to activities involving team building The goal of a team physician is to improve p ...

, Dr. John Uribe, to pay McDuffie $11.5 million in damages. The lawsuit alleged Uribe told McDuffie he was safe to continue playing football, despite

MRIs Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to form pictures of the anatomy and the physiological processes of the body. MRI scanners use strong magnetic fields, magnetic field gradients, and radio wa ...

showing damage to the

tendons A tendon or sinew is a tough, high-tensile-strength band of dense fibrous connective tissue that connects muscle to bone. It is able to transmit the mechanical forces of muscle contraction to the skeletal system without sacrificing its ability ...

in his toe. On September 30, 2010, Judge Michael Genden of Miami-Dade County tossed out that verdict due to the improper use of a medical manual as evidence. The judge also ordered a new trial. A second trial resulted in a verdict for Dr. Uribe. On appeal by McDuffie, the Third District Court affirmed the judgment for Dr. Uribe.

NFL career statistics

Life after football

McDuffie hosts a weekly podcast
The Fish Tank: Dolphins Tales From The Deep
as part of the Miami Dolphins Podcast Network. McDuffie and his co-host, Seth Levit, are joined by popular personalities connected to the

, including current and former players, coaches, front office and team personnel as well as media members who have covered the team, sharing, "the best Miami Dolphins stories you never heard." McDuffie was formerly a radio personality for WAXY, an AM

sports radio Sports radio (or sports talk radio) is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A widespread programming genre that has a narrow audience appeal, sports radio is characterized by an often- boisterous on ...

station in South Florida and is now a sports

blog A blog (a truncation of "weblog") is a discussion or informational website published on the World Wide Web consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries (posts). Posts are typically displayed in reverse chronological order s ...

ger at OPENSports.com. He is also the founder and chairman of the Catch 81 Foundation, an organization created to raise money for children's charitable causes in the

South Florida metropolitan area The Miami metropolitan area (also known as Greater Miami, the Tri-County Area, South Florida, or the Gold Coast) is the ninth largest metropolitan statistical area in the United States and the 34th largest metropolitan area in the world with a ...

. He was inducted into the Dolphins Walk of Fame on December 29, 2013. In 2015, he was inducted into the Hawken School Athletic Hall of Fame.

References

External links

"About O.J. McDuffie"
on SportsTalk 790
"McDuffie Biography"
OPENSports.com
McDuffie's McBlog
OPEN Sports Network
Catch 81 Foundation

''O.J. McDuffie: My Five Most Memorable Games''
The Finsiders, July 6, 2013 {{DEFAULTSORT:McDuffie, O. J. 1969 births Living people All-American college football players American bloggers American columnists American football wide receivers American sports radio personalities Journalists from Ohio Miami Dolphins players Penn State Nittany Lions football players People from Marion, Ohio Players of American football from Ohio 21st-century American non-fiction writers Hawken School alumni Ed Block Courage Award recipients