Mainstreet Daily News
Reche Caldwell a standout wide receiver for the Florida Gators football team from 1998-2001, was shot and killed in Tampa on Saturday, according to reports.
He was 41.
The Tampa Police Department released the following statement about the shooting:
“Officers responding to a call about a shooting just before 11 p.m. (Saturday) found a man in his 40’s with a gunshot wound in the yard of a home on the 3600 block of East Hanna Avenue. Officers rendered aid before a fire-rescue crew took the man to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead.”
Caldwell’s 141 career catches still rank eighth in UF history, and his 1,059 receiving yards in 2001 are the eighth-most ever by a Gator in one season. As a junior in 2001, he was a third-team All-American selection by The National Sports Bureau, an honorable mention All-American selection by the Football News, a semi-finalist for the Fred Biletnikoff Award (annually given to nation’s top receiver), and a second-team All-Southeastern Conference selection.
Caldwell played six years in the NFL for the Chargers, Patriots and Redskins — and was a part of the New England team that lost to the Colts in the 2006 AFC Championship. In his six-season NFL career, Caldwell appeared in seventy-one games, starting in twenty-nine of them, while making 152 receptions for 1,851 yards and eleven touchdowns. Caldwell retired from the NFL in 2008.
The University of Florida Football program released the following statement on its twitter account:
“We are deeply saddened by the loss of former Gator WR Reche Caldwell. Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”
This is a developing story and will be updated as more details are known.