Greg Dortch used to play quarterback and running back in high school – but then the players around him started getting taller.
And he didn’t.
“I pretty much did everything,” joked Dortch, who is listed at 5-7 and 175 pounds, after Panthers practice. “As I got older, everybody else started to grow and I kind of stayed the same, so it was best for me to either play corner or wide receiver and I just ended up at receiver.”
It worked out pretty well.
Eight games into his redshirt freshman season at Wake Forest, Greg Dortch was having one of the best games in Demon Deacon history, scoring a school-record four touchdowns as he racked up 167 yards on ten catches, putting the cap on a strong debut season in which he had scored nine times in the first eight games of the year, including five times in the first four of the season.
A few hours later, he was being rushed to the hospital as a punctured small intestine suffered during the win would cost the wideout from Virginia the final four games of his freshman season – leaving him to ask doctors if he could still play after having emergency surgery.
He couldn’t – so he set out to be even better when he returned the next season.
“Life is all about getting knocked down and getting back up,” said Dortch, whom the Panthers signed last week off of the Jets’ practice squad. “That injury could have [taken] my life, but it didn’t – I don’t know, it kind of pushed me more to just want to prove everybody wrong that was like, ‘oh, he’s not going to come back from the injury.'”
“It’s not what you do when you get knocked down, it’s what you do when you get back up.”
The diminutive wide receiver from Highland Springs, VA got back up in a big way – earning second-team AP All-America honors at the all-purpose position and first-team All-ACC honors at two different positions – all-purpose on offense and returner on special teams – as he returned two punts for touchdowns and led the Demon Deacons with 89 receptions for 1,078 yards and eight touchdowns on offense, including tying the record he had set the year before with four touchdown catches against Rice.
Even after his stunning sophomore season, Dortch went undrafted and signed with the Jets as an undrafted free agent and quickly turned heads during training camp – he had eight catches on ten targets, including a touchdown, and sparked the Jets on special teams with nine punt returns for 85 yards, including an electrifying 32-yard burst against the Saints.
“I felt like I was in the perfect position, I talked to the coaches, they felt like I was in the perfect position,” said Dortch. “To be honest, I don’t know what happened.”
“I felt like I did everything I could in preseason to put myself in the position to make the 53.”
27 yard return for Dortch who has seemed to have locked up his roster spot + the PR duties. Sees lanes very well and is able to burst through cuts with good contact balance. Penalty on this play because Bellamy got flagged for unnecessary roughness. pic.twitter.com/yajH75VGil
— Joe Blewett (@Joerb31) August 29, 2019
But he was ecstatic to return to Carolina – Dortch, who wore 89 as a freshman at Wake to pay homage to Steve Smith, implored his agent to contact Carolina once he found out that they had parted ways with returner Ray-Ray McCloud – and he knows what his number one job will be as a returner, especially after McCloud was released when his fumble count reached three in six games.
“I just want to prove to the guys that I’m accountable and that they can depend on me to catch the ball – that’s first and foremost, you’ve got to catch the ball when you’re a punt returner,” Dortch told Wilson & Parcell on WFNZ. “If they can depend on me to be a sure-handed guy back there and not turn the ball over, then that’s what I can be.”
