Orlando Keith McDaniel (December 1, 1960 – March 27, 2020) was an American

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

wide receiver. He played college football for the LSU Tigers (1978–1981) and professional football for the

Denver Broncos The Denver Broncos are a professional American football franchise based in Denver. The Broncos compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) West division. The team is headquart ...

(1982). He appeared in 44 games at LSU, totaling 64 receptions for 1,184 yards and three touchdowns. Drafted by the Broncos in the second round of the

1982 NFL Draft The 1982 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 27–28, 1982, at the New York She ...

, he appeared in only three NFL games and did not catch a pass. McDaniel died in March 2020, a victim at age 59 of the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Biography

McDaniel was born in

Shreveport, Louisiana Shreveport ( ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana. It is the third most populous city in Louisiana after New Orleans and Baton Rouge, respectively. The Shreveport–Bossier City metropolitan area, with a population of 393,406 in 2020, is t ...

, and attended Lake Charles High School in

Lake Charles, Louisiana Lake Charles (French: ''Lac Charles'') is the fifth-largest incorporated city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the parish seat of Calcasieu Parish, located on Lake Charles, Prien Lake, and the Calcasieu River. Founded in 1861 in Calcasieu ...

. He attended college at

Louisiana State University Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, commonly referred to as LSU) is a public land-grant research university in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. The university was founded in 1860 nea ...

, where he played as a wide receiver for the Tigers. At LSU, he caught 64 passes for 1,184 yards and three touchdowns over four seasons. His 17.5 yards per reception in 1981 ranked second in the

Southeastern Conference The Southeastern Conference (SEC) is an American college athletic conference whose member institutions are located primarily in the South Central and Southeastern United States. Its fourteen members include the flagship public universities of ...

, and his 719 receiving yards ranked fourth. McDaniel also ran track, and finished second in 1980 in the NCAA Division I Outdoor Track and Field Championships – Men's 110 meter hurdles. McDaniel was the founder and coach of the North Texas Cheetahs Track Club. On March 27, 2020, McDaniel died of complications from

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei, identified in Wuhan, China, in December ...

during the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas.

References

External links

* 1960 births 2020 deaths American football wide receivers American male hurdlers Denver Broncos players LSU Tigers football players LSU Tigers track and field athletes Players of American football from Shreveport, Louisiana African-American players of American football Deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic in Texas 21st-century African-American people {{widereceiver-1960s-stub