For three years, Doug Gabriel wanted to do nothing.

On good days, he’d come home from school and watch a little television. On bad days, he’d barricade himself in his room and mope.

For three years, Orlando, Fla., residents never knew that Gabriel had dominated football games on Miami Beach since he was 5. They didn’t know that, at the age of 11, youth coaches were assuring his family he’d earn a free pass to college. They didn’t know that, as a 22-year old, he’d be a projected top-10 National Football League selection.

That’s because at the age of 13, when his mother, Helen, died of throat cancer, Gabriel prayed the world would stop.

He didn’t want to move. He didn’t want to think. And he certainly didn’t want to feel.

‘It’s the worst I’ve ever been,’ Gabriel said. ‘I was so depressed I couldn’t tell I was depressed. My aunt was the one who figured it out. I didn’t do anything.’

‘He didn’t want to indulge in anything,’ his aunt, Betty Cios said. ‘He doesn’t like to talk about his mom. It brings back too much pain. He’s quiet about it.’

Maybe Gabriel used to be. And maybe that shows how far he’s come. Saturday, when Central Florida hosts Syracuse at 7 p.m., Gabriel will line up as UCF’s leading reciever and the biggest threat in a vaunted spread offense. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound wideout has already caught for 642 yards and four touchdowns.

Mention Helen to Gabriel now and he opens up slowly, like he’s tearing a Band-Aid off an 8-year wound. He answers the first few questions with ‘yup’s’ and ‘nope’s,’ testing to see if the damage has healed. But eventually he rips away.

He’ll discuss how his dad left him, his mother and three brothers in Miami when he was 2 years old. He’ll talk about how much the volunteer work he does at school means to him. Most nights, after practice, Gabriel visits children in the Orlando area, who, like him, have no parents left.

‘The community service is not run through us,’ Central Florida wide receivers coach Sean Beckton said. ‘It’s a school program, but the football team doesn’t make him do anything. It’s great to see someone doing this on their own.’

It makes Gabriel difficult to track down during the fall. When he’s not at practice, he’s with children. Even Cios, who housed Gabriel during his high school years, can barely get in a hello before Gabriel’s back on the run.

‘I call and he’ll say, ‘Sorry, gotta go to practice,’ ‘ Cios said with a thick, Southern accent. ‘Or, ‘Sorry, I’m with the kids.’ I understand how it is.’

But none of Gabriel’s family minds his crazy schedule. After all, it’s better than watching him sit and do nothing for three years.

Football helped Gabriel break his slump. Three years after his mother’s death, something changed inside Gabriel.

At Dr. Phillips High School in Orlando, few people ever knew Gabriel had lost his mother. He’d left her funeral clinging to Cios’ hand.

‘All he kept saying was, ‘I’m going home with you Auntie,’ ‘ Cios said. ‘ ‘I’m going home with you.’ ‘

After that, Cios became Gabriel’s mother-figure. She fed him and his three brothers, as well as her five kids. Her four-bedroom house in Orlando was overrun with boys, six in all. At night, the boys shared beds, fighting for room under the sheets.

‘They had to cuddle,’ Cios said. ‘I wasn’t going to have them go nowhere else. I was going to make room.’

The other brothers, though, adjusted more easily to life without their mom. Gabriel’s brother, Travis, who studies and lives with Gabriel at Central Florida, turned to sports as an outlet. He began playing organized football.

Meanwhile, Gabriel quit football. After a childhood of summer afternoons at Miami’s football camps and summer nights with his mom, Gabriel wasn’t ready to face the field without mom in the stands.

He informed football coaches at both his former school in Miami, and new high school, Dr. Phillips, that he didn’t want to play. As he sat around his aunt’s house, he even stopped playing pick-up basketball with his cousin, current Maryland Terrapin guard Calvin McCall.

‘I stayed in and separated myself,’ Gabriel said. ‘I went from having fun, to not talking to anyone. I probably averaged about 20 words a day.’

Gabriel also avoided school. Though he attended class every day, Gabriel rarely paid attention and did even less homework. He didn’t care about sports. He didn’t care about school. He didn’t care about his future.

Until his senior year in high school, Gabriel hadn’t thought about going to college or getting a job.

‘Nothing was really that important anymore,’ Gabriel said. ‘Nothing really mattered. I’d just zoned out.’

But then, one summer morning, Gabriel changed.

‘He just came downstairs and asked me to take him to a doctor (for clearance) so he could play football,’ Cios said. ‘He said, ‘Mama, I love football. I love football.’ ‘

Gabriel returned to the gridiron for the first time since his mom died, lining up at wideout for Dr. Phillips. Gabriel started talking. And once again, he started caring.

During his lone year of high school football, he piled up 31 catches and 16 touchdowns.

Current Dr. Phillips head coach David Langdon coached against Gabriel his senior year.

‘He was just so athletic,’ Langdon said. ‘I think he scored every which way. He returned one, he ran for one, he received one.’

After returning to a world of activities, Gabriel couldn’t leave.

He played basketball in the winter and ran track in the spring, wowing teams with his sprint speed. He impressed then-Miami coach Dennis Erickson enough that the Hurricanes’ coach offered a scholarship.

Since playing in those summer camps, Gabriel had dreamed of becoming a Hurricane, but the three years he took off in high school got in the way. Gabriel’s poor grades forced him into a two-year stint at Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College.

After finishing there, he received attention from a number of schools, until he pared the final candidates to Florida State and Central Florida.

The Seminoles, though, wanted Gabriel to become a defensive back, and even during those days on Miami Beach, Helen had told her son he was born to be a wide receiver.

‘I tell him every time he thinks he’s alone, she’s watching him,’ Cios said. ‘The dead are out there watching over him. She always wanted him to be a football player.’

Published on October 31, 2002 at 12:00 pm