O. J. McDuffie
Encyclopedia
Otis James McDuffie is a former American Football
player who played wide receiver
for the Miami Dolphins
from 1993 to 2000. In college
, McDuffie was an All-America
n at Penn State University. He was formerly a radio personality
for WAXY
, an AM
sports radio
station in South Florida
and is now a sports blog
ger at OPENSports.com.
McDuffie 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
.
in Gates Mills, Ohio
, excelling in football
, basketball
, track and field
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
state record. During his senior year in 1987, he was named the A-AA Ohio
Player of the year. For the 1987 high school football season, he scored 136 points (21 touchdowns) ahead of future professional football players Desmond Howard
and Robert Smith
.
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
from McDuffie's days playing Marion Midget Football are featured in an exhibit entitled "A Passion to Play" at the Marion County Historical Society
.
at Penn State. He wore the number 24 for the Nittany Lions. He set many single-season and career receiving records, as well as all-purpose yard records. His performance in Penn State's 1992 Fiesta Bowl
victory over Tennessee
on January 1, 1992 garnered him the game's offensive MVP.
McDuffie also played baseball
while at Penn State. He earned a Bachelor of Science
in Labor and Industrial Relations from Penn State in 1992.
. 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 is the only Dolphin to achieve this feat. McDuffie 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
jurors ordered a former Dolphins team physician
, 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
showing damage to the tendons 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.
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
player who played wide receiver
Wide receiver
A wide receiver is an offensive position in American and Canadian football, and is the key player in most of the passing plays. Only players in the backfield or the ends on the line are eligible to catch a forward pass. The two players who begin play at the ends of the offensive line are eligible...
for the Miami Dolphins
Miami Dolphins
The Miami Dolphins are a Professional football team based in the Miami metropolitan area in Florida. The team is part of the Eastern Division of the American Football Conference in the National Football League...
from 1993 to 2000. In college
College football
College football refers to American football played by teams of student athletes fielded by American universities, colleges, and military academies, or Canadian football played by teams of student athletes fielded by Canadian universities...
, McDuffie was an All-America
All-America
An All-America team is an honorary sports team composed of outstanding amateur players—those considered the best players of a specific season for each team position—who in turn are given the honorific "All-America" and typically referred to as "All-American athletes", or simply...
n at Penn State University. He was formerly a radio personality
Radio personality
A radio personality is a person with an on-air position in radio broadcasting. A radio personality can be someone who introduces and discusses various genres of music, hosts a talk radio show that may take calls from listeners, or someone whose primary responsibility is to give news, weather,...
for WAXY
WAXY
WAXY is a radio station licensed in South Miami, Florida broadcasting on 790 kHz with a sports talk format. The station is owned by Lincoln Financial Media, which was previously known as Jefferson-Pilot Communications...
, an AM
AM broadcasting
AM broadcasting is the process of radio broadcasting using amplitude modulation. AM was the first method of impressing sound on a radio signal and is still widely used today. Commercial and public AM broadcasting is carried out in the medium wave band world wide, and on long wave and short wave...
sports radio
Sports radio
Sports radio is a radio format devoted entirely to discussion and broadcasting of sporting events. A popular format with an almost exclusively male demographic in most areas, sports radio is characterized by an often-boisterous on-air style and extensive debate and analysis by both hosts and...
station in South Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and is now a sports blog
Blog
A blog is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in...
ger at OPENSports.com.
McDuffie 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
South Florida metropolitan area
The South Florida metropolitan area, also known as the Miami metropolitan area, and designated the Miami–Fort Lauderdale–Pompano Beach, FL Metropolitan Statistical Area by the U.S...
.
High school
McDuffie attended Hawken SchoolHawken 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 Gates Mills, plus a third, an urban campus in University Circle, The Sally & Bob Gries Center...
in Gates Mills, Ohio
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 an affluent suburb of Cleveland...
, excelling in football
High school football
High school football, in North America, refers to the game of football as it is played in the United States and Canada. It ranks among the most popular interscholastic sports in both of these nations....
, basketball
Basketball
Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...
, track and field
Track and field
Track and field is a sport comprising various competitive athletic contests based around the activities of running, jumping and throwing. The name of the sport derives from the venue for the competitions: a stadium which features an oval running track surrounding a grassy area...
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
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
state record. During his senior year in 1987, he was named the A-AA Ohio
Ohio
Ohio is a Midwestern state in the United States. The 34th largest state by area in the U.S.,it is the 7th‑most populous with over 11.5 million residents, containing several major American cities and seven metropolitan areas with populations of 500,000 or more.The state's capital is Columbus...
Player of the year. For the 1987 high school football season, he scored 136 points (21 touchdowns) ahead of future professional football players Desmond Howard
Desmond Howard
Desmond Kevin Howard is a former NFL wide receiver, punt returner, and kickoff returner.He played football for the University of Michigan from 1989–1991 and won the Heisman Trophy in 1991...
and Robert Smith
Robert Smith (football)
Robert Scott Smith is a former American football running back who played with the Ohio State Buckeyes and later with the Minnesota Vikings of the NFL. While in college, he openly criticized the Ohio State football staff for not allowing him to concentrate on academics as he wanted to go to medical...
.
His number 32 is retired at Hawken School and The News-Herald
The News-Herald (Ohio)
The News-Herald is a newspaper distributed in the northeastern portion of Northeast Ohio, serving Lake, Geauga, and Ashtabula Counties as well as a section of eastern Cuyahoga County.-History:...
named McDuffie the number 3 player of the 20th century in Northeast Ohio
Greater Cleveland
Greater Cleveland is a nickname for the metropolitan area surrounding Cleveland, Ohio and is part of what used to be the Connecticut Western Reserve.Northeast Ohio refers to a similar but substantially larger area as described below...
. Memorabilia
Sports memorabilia
The term sports memorabilia usually refers to anything that can be directly connected to a sports event or personality. These items are generally gathered by the fans of the particular sport, athlete or team that the item signifies or by collectors who find value in the rarity time-value of these...
from McDuffie's days playing Marion Midget Football are featured in an exhibit entitled "A Passion to Play" at the Marion County Historical Society
Marion County Historical Society
The Marion County Historical Society is located in Marion, Ohio. In addition to operating Heritage Hall, a comprehensive museum dedicated to the preservation of Marion County Ohio history, the Society also operates the Rinker-Howser Resource Center, Linn School House and Seiter Cabin...
.
Penn State
McDuffie played college football for legendary coach Joe PaternoJoe Paterno
Joseph Vincent "Joe" Paterno is a former college football coach who was the head coach of the Penn State Nittany Lions for 46 years from 1966 through 2011. Paterno, nicknamed "JoePa," holds the record for the most victories by an NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision football coach with...
at Penn State. He wore the number 24 for the Nittany Lions. He set many single-season and career receiving records, as well as all-purpose yard records. His performance in Penn State's 1992 Fiesta Bowl
1992 Fiesta Bowl
The 1991 IBM OS/2 Fiesta Bowl, was a post-season college football bowl game between the Penn State Nittany Lions and the Tennessee Volunteers, played January 1, 1992 at Sun Devil Stadium in Tempe, Arizona.-Notes:...
victory over Tennessee
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee is a public land-grant university headquartered at Knoxville, Tennessee, United States...
on January 1, 1992 garnered him the game's offensive MVP.
McDuffie also played baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
while at Penn State. He earned a Bachelor of Science
Bachelor of Science
A Bachelor of Science is an undergraduate academic degree awarded for completed courses that generally last three to five years .-Australia:In Australia, the BSc is a 3 year degree, offered from 1st year on...
in Labor and Industrial Relations from Penn State in 1992.
Professional career
McDuffie was selected in the first round (25th pick overall) of the 1993 NFL Draft1993 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...
. He returned punts
Punt returner
Punt returner is a position on special teams in American football.-Description:The role of a punt returner is to catch the ball after it is punted and to give his team good field position by returning it. Before catching the punted ball, the returner must assess the situation on the field while...
and was a reserve wide receiver before earning the starting
Starting lineup
A starting lineup in sports is an official list of the set of players who will actively participate in the event when the game begins. The players in the starting lineup are commonly referred to as starters, whereas the others are substitutes or bench players.The starters are commonly the best...
spot for the Dolphins. During his formative years with the Dolphins, McDuffie became known as Dan Marino's
Dan Marino
Daniel Constantine "Dan" Marino, Jr. is a retired American football quarterback who played for the Miami Dolphins in the National Football League...
favorite receiver. His 415 career catches are fourth all-time in Dolphins history. In 1998, McDuffie caught 90 passes, leading the NFL
National Football League
The National Football League is the highest level of professional American football in the United States, and is considered the top professional American football league in the world. It was formed by eleven teams in 1920 as the American Professional Football Association, with the league changing...
in that category. He is the only Dolphin to achieve this feat. McDuffie 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
Medical malpractice
Medical malpractice is professional negligence by act or omission by a health care provider in which the treatment provided falls below the accepted standard of practice in the medical community and causes injury or death to the patient, with most cases involving medical error. Standards and...
related to that career-ending toe injury. On May 5, 2010, Miami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County, Florida
Miami-Dade County is a county located in the southeastern part of the state of Florida. As of 2010 U.S. Census, the county had a population of 2,496,435, making it the most populous county in Florida and the eighth-most populous county in the United States...
jurors ordered a former Dolphins team physician
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...
, 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
Magnetic resonance imaging , nuclear magnetic resonance imaging , or magnetic resonance tomography is a medical imaging technique used in radiology to visualize detailed internal structures...
showing damage to the tendons 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.
External links
- "About O.J. McDuffie", on SportsTalk 790
- "McDuffie Biography", OPENSports.com
- McDuffie's McBlog, OPEN Sports Network
- Catch 81 Foundation