Antonio Gates
American football player (born 1980)

Antonio Ethan Gates Jr. (born June 18, 1980) is an American former professional football player who spent his entire 16-year career as a tight end for the San Diego / Los Angeles Chargers of the National Football League (NFL) from 2003 to 2018. He was named to the Pro Bowl eight times and was a six-time All-Pro selection. Gates was inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2025.
Gates was signed as an undrafted free agent in 2003 after playing college basketball for the Kent State Golden Flashes. He attended college at Kent State University in his junior and senior years after brief stints at Michigan State University and Eastern Michigan University. He is the Chargers' career leader in receiving yards and receiving touchdowns. In 2015, he became the second tight end and ninth player overall to record 100 career touchdown receptions. He ranks seventh in career touchdown receptions, with 116, and leads all tight ends in NFL history. He was the first player to be inducted to the Pro Football Hall of Fame without playing college football.
“Antonio Gates” enters the record as american football player (born 1980). Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Antonio, Gates and American can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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“Antonio Gates” is worth following because a concise public description often conceals a longer documentary argument. Here, Antonio, Gates and American provides the most credible route into that argument.
Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 18, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q2565943. VIAF identifies the subject as 4403715. The Library of Congress control number is n2008037153. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1980, 2003, 2018 and 2025.
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This entry incorporates text from “Antonio Gates” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.