Staff photo / UTC wide receiver C.J. Board tries to find a way past Furman's Aaquil Annoor during a SoCon football game on Oct. 10, 2015, at Finley Stadium. Board, who signed with the Mocs in 2012 and played his final college season in 2016, has caught on with the New York Giants after earlier opportunities with NFL teams didn't produce much of a chance to get on the field.Productivity and success have come relatively easily for New York Giants receiver C.J. Board throughout most of his football career. Once he entered the NFL, dealing with a form of failure quickly became his biggest challenge.
Board was an all-state receiver at Kenwood High School in Clarksville, Tennessee. At the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, he had 2,032 receiving yards and 146 catches, ranking in the top 10 in school history in both cases. As a fifth-year senior in 2016, he produced career bests with 46 catches, 725 receiving yards and five touchdown receptions.
In the NFL, though, opportunities with the Baltimore Ravens, Tennessee Titans and Cleveland Browns didn't work out. In 2019 with the Jacksonville Jaguars, Board finally made an NFL team's 53-man roster for the first time and had two catches.
"Those first few years in the league were tough," he admitted recently. "I was getting cut constantly, and I've never been through that before. You go to high school, you go to college - and college is a little more of a challenge, but you're still a top player - and then you get to the big leagues and everyone's good, so it's a learning experience.
"I leaned on former teammates, friends and family back home and coaches, and that's helped me out. The biggest thing I've taken away from it is that no matter what happens, you have to keep grinding and you have to keep working, and that's what I did. When I was released, I never took it personal. I've learned that it is a business and some of the stuff is out of your control. Some things make you look in the mirror and make you work on things that you didn't know you had to work on."
AP photo by Kamil Krzaczynski / C.J. Board lines up at wide receiver for the New York Giants during their road game against the Chicago Bears on Sept. 20. Board, who made 146 catches and had more than 2,000 receiving yards during his UTC career, is one of several Mocs on an NFL roster this year.He was picked up off waivers by the Giants in mid-August, and he has earned not only a spot on the roster but a role in the offense with six catches for 58 yards through three games. His most productive performance was against the Chicago Bears on Sept. 20, when he had three catches for 32 yards plus a 34-yard kickoff return, showing off some of the speed he showcased at UTC's pro day in 2017, when he was clocked at 4.37 seconds in the 40-yard dash.
The next challenge is helping the Giants earn their first victory of the season, and the lack of team success is another new experience for Board. The Mocs totaled 36 victories in his four seasons on the field, with Board part of a 15-player 2012 signing class that produced five players who earned NFL opportunities and another, linebacker Nakevion Leslie, who was a Football Championship Subdivision All-American.
Currently there are five former UTC players on NFL rosters in some fashion: Board, 31-year-old defensive back Buster Skrine (Bears), 24-year-old linebacker Tae Davis (Browns), 24-year-old defensive lineman Isaiah Mack (Titans) and 23-year-old defensive back Kareem Orr, who is on the Titans' practice squad.
Mack and Orr played at local high schools Northwest Whitfield and Notre Dame, respectively, and in addition to the UTC players, the Chattanooga area has three former prep players on NFL rosters: defensive backs Vonn Bell (Cincinnati Bengals) and Tre Herndon (Jaguars) and running back Senorise Perry (Titans), who is currently on injured reserve. Bell, 25, played at Central and Ridgeland before going on to Ohio State, Herndon, 24, starred at East Hamilton before signing with Vanderbilt and Perry, 29, went from Chattooga to Louisville.
Board shows gratitude for his time with the Mocs and said he still keeps in touch with a number of his former coaches. He's also glad he's not the only player representing UTC in the NFL.
"It speaks to how the Chattanooga program has produced so many good players and it has developed a lot of us," he said. "It's a testament to all the people in Chattanooga, it's a testament to all the coaches that we are around and just how they developed us.
"The alumni, we keep pushing each other to go hard and do good things."
Contact Gene Henley at ghenley@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @genehenley3.