Hall of Fame Spotlight: Santana Dotson
10/25/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 25, 2004
By JERRY HILL
If one play can define a career, it's easy to pick one for former Baylor all-America defensive tackle Santana Dotson.
With time running out in a Sept. 14, 1991 game at Boulder, Colo., defending national champion Colorado was lined up for a 24-yard field goal that would have stretched the Buffaloes' lead to 17-13. But Dotson would have none of it.
That loud "Boom!" was Dotson blocking Jim Harper's field-goal try all the way back to the other side of the field, where Baylor teammate Brian Hand recovered.
Jeff Ireland's 35-yard field goal with 51 seconds left proved to be the game-winner, 16-14. But without Dotson's unbelievable blocked kick, it never would have happened.
"Just to be on center stage, Colorado coming off the championship year. There was nobody giving us any chance of being able to pull that off," Dotson said. "It was such a huge play. It brought a lot of attention and focus not just to me, but to the team as a whole.
"We were always thought of as being a pretty good team. But that win made people think, 'Hey, Baylor might be for real. We need to check these guys out.' "
The 34-year-old Dotson will be inducted into the Baylor Athletic Hall of Fame on Oct. 29, joining a class that includes former basketball players Richard Tinsley and Lynnell Pyron Pilgrim and Baylor Bear Insider editor-in-chief Dave Campbell.
"He was an extraordinary athlete for his size and had great quickness," said former Baylor head coach Grant Teaff. "He was really a physical specimen. And as he matured, he developed into a great college football player."
Dotson was a prep all-American at Houston Yates High School, leading his team to a three-year record of 36-4 that included the Class 5A state championship as a junior in 1985. He was named to the Texas High School Football Hall of Fame in 2002.
"All the awards, those things, they all sit on my mantle at home," said Dotson, who lives in Houston. "And now that my career is over and my family is getting older, I want them to look at those things and think, 'You know, he must not have been that bad.' "
From his first year at Baylor, Dotson was far from "not that bad." After redshirting, he was named the Southwest Conference newcomer of the year by the Dallas Morning News in 1988, when he had 36 tackles and four stops behind the line.
"I knew for me to be any good, I had to be like him," said former Baylor defensive end Robin Jones, who played on the same line with Dotson for four years and remains one of his closest friends. "It was never envy or jealousy, just a little friendly competition. The guy was just amazing. To be that big and move that fast."
But for Dotson, the best was yet to come.
A three-year starter for the Bears, Dotson finished his career with 193 tackles, 18 sacks and four forced fumbles. He was a three-time all-conference pick and a consensus first-team all-American as a senior in 1991, when he had 60 tackles, four sacks and two blocked kicks.
After his junior year, Dotson gave serious thought to turning pro. But he never regretted his decision to return for his senior year.
"That really made it worth it to come back and be an all-American as a senior," said Dotson, who was also a Lombardi Award finalist. "The way I figured it, the NFL is always going to be there. But those are times they can't ever take away from you."
Expected to go in the first two rounds of the 1992 draft, a stunned Dotson lasted to the fifth round, when he was taken by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
"I think any player wants to go in the first round or the first 10 picks," Dotson said. "But I made a decision that I was going to seize the moment and grab the opportunity. All I wanted to do was get in the door. And I knew that once I got in, there was no way I was going to disappoint myself, my family or my friends.
"Every time I put on that helmet, I felt like I was playing for all the guys that never got the same chances that I had. And like I tell rookies that come into the league, there's as many first-round guys that fail as there are fifth-round guys that prove people wrong and make it."
Dotson certainly did that. In a 10-year NFL career with the Buccaneers and Green Bay Packers, he had 291 tackles, 49 quarterback sacks and 23 pass breakups.
"We thought he could go on to an NFL career," Teaff said of Dotson. "He had the right temperament, and his dad (Alphonse) was an NFL player who gave him a lot of guidance."
While he played in only one bowl game at Baylor _ a 24-0 loss to Indiana in the '91 Copper Bowl _ Dotson played on back-to-back Super Bowl teams with the Packers. Green Bay beat New England to win the 1996 championship before losing to Denver the next year.
"You feel like you're on top of the world," he said. "There's no other feeling like it. But I can tell you that I'd rather be 2-14 and sitting at home than lose in the Super Bowl. It's like it's all for naught. Your family and friends will tell you, 'It's OK, it was still a great season.' But you don't want to hear it. All you remember is how bad it feels to lose that game."
Released by the Packers after the 2001 season as a cost-cutting measure, Dotson signed as a free agent with the Washington Redksins. But he missed the 2002 season with a torn Achilles' heel and then retired.
"Your body starts talking to you," he said.
Dotson writes a weekly column on Green Bay's Web site and is also involved with the Santana Dotson Foundation, a non-profit scholarship program that helps underprivileged kids in inner-city Houston.
"I've got some guys who are now doctors, one that's in law school," said Dotson, who has a son, Khari, and two daughters, Amani and Sanaa'. "To be able to say you had a positive impact on a guy's life. To me, that's far more important than anything I did in my NFL career."
