Science, Star Wars and family: Going a little deeper with Luke Doty
In his final year of high school, Luke Doty got a gift of sorts.
Many football players refer to teammates as brothers, but the Myrtle Beach High School star who’s now a freshman South Carolina quarterback had never been able to call his actual brother, Jake, a teammate.
That’s a quirk of having a sibling three years younger. It’s enough of a gap that many activities are separated, up until high school when Luke’s last run came as his brother was just coming onboard.
“That was a really cool experience,” Luke Doty said. “Just us growing up together and us being as tight as we are, to just go out there and share this deal with him during the playoff run that we had on Friday nights, it was a really cool moment for us as brothers, for my parents, just seeing both of their kids on the field at the same time is, I know, pretty cool for them, too.”
Jake was a JV quarterback, helping out on the sideline during varsity games. Luke was the top passer in the state, trying to lead a perennially strong program in a defense of its state title.
Parts of the year didn’t go as hoped. The team was undefeated and tops in the state when Doty hurt his hand, abbreviating his final campaign. Behind a backup, a powerful running game and a hard-hitting defense, the Seahawks made it back to state with both Dotys on the sidelines.
Luke was still named Mr. Football for the state, and what had been a picture perfect junior year gave way to something different. But before he takes the next step into the world of college football, he and his family got to savor something special.
“It was awesome!” Luke and Jake’s father Bobby wrote in an email. “Unfortunately, the first playoff game was the game Luke got injured. Having Luke and Jake on the sidelines together during the playoffs was very special for us.”
A beach family
The Doty roots run deep at The Beach.
Bobby Doty grew up there, went to college in the rural burg of Due West, South Carolina, met his wife, Melanie, there, and then returned to the coast. And the place has had an impact on his son.
“I love this place man,” Luke said. “I’ll always be a beach boy, that’s for sure. It’s gonna be a lot of fun moving to Columbia, you know, kind of making that my new home, but Myrtle Beach always have a special place in my heart, as a community, as a football program, high school, all that stuff.”
His father remembered a son who was on the bigger and faster end of things even early on. At age 3, he was doing things some of the other kids on the playground couldn’t, daring to do extra acrobatics on the monkey bars.
It foreshadowed an athletic career that included some soccer and basketball early in his life.
“Luke was a very active kid,” Bobby Doty wrote. “He always wanted to be outside playing or if forced inside, loved to build Legos, Hot Wheels tracks, etc.”
But football was always the first love, even if he didn’t start out slinging passes.
“I actually started out playing fullback and linebacker and a little bit of defensive end here and there,” Luke said. “I got selected for All-Stars one year, and I think the starting quarterback had been hurt or something. And the coaches asked me to start throwing a couple balls to receivers during warmups.”
Bobby Doty recalled a camp at nearby Coastal Carolina when Luke was in sixth grade. After showing off those skills, Chanticleers offensive coordinator Dave Patenaude approached him with the message Luke Doty was a “special kid” who needed to be at QB and showed uncommon leadership for his age.
It opened Bobby’s eyes, and three years later, Patenaude extended the first scholarship offer to the prodigious young player. In ninth grade, he also started working with Upstate quarterback instructor Ramon Robinson. The distance factor had to be worked through early, but by the end of his career, Robinson had several pupils in the Myrtle Beach area, and he proved instrumental in Luke’s development.
Luke came up in a family that knew the world of athletics. His mother ran cross-country at Erskine College, and his father played basketball there. He credits them for making him the man he is now but said they didn’t make sports the biggest driver.
“Neither of my parents really pushed on us,” Luke said. “They kind of let us do our own thing and kind of take our own paths.
“I played basketball for him. He coached our rec league team. For a few years I played basketball. But I knew that football was my passion, and I think he did, too.”
Bobby helped provide some knowledge during his son’s recruitment, but mostly let Luke do everything himself.
Melanie Doty might well have passed on some speed, but she also provided something else that proved important to his path to college.
“She’s always stressed academics and stuff,” Luke said. “We not able to do anything, go out in the field, go out, hang out with friends or anything before our schoolwork is done. So I’m pretty thankful for that. She’s (been) that in my head so I’ll be ready for college.”
His recruitment wasn’t one that dragged out, and his name gained traction relatively early. He had offers from South Carolina and North Carolina before the start of his sophomore year and was a regular at camps and events across the Carolinas.
And he closed it down early. Many players wait until the spring of their junior years or a little later. He made the call before practice even started before his junior campaign.
At that point, he hadn’t even been a full-time starting quarterback, instead helping at receiver and starting a few games as a sophomore. But his play there had the eye of his future college staff.
“There was an injury and we watched the tape, so he actually started some games,” Gamecocks coach Will Muschamp said. “We had had him in camp, we’d seen his work ethic, we’d seen his leadership ability.”
Two of those starts saw him throw for more than 200 yards and the other saw him run for 173 in a shootout loss. That was only a hint of what was to come as he blossomed when finally handed the reins.
He delivered a massive statistical season, leading his squad to 7-1 at the start of the playoffs with only a loss to Hartsville. He led them through the playoffs, blowing out the first three teams, putting up more than 500 yards of offense in a 52-31 revenge game against Hartsville and finally rallying his team from down 14-0 against Greer to win a state title.
This fall was more of the same strong production and a team so dominant, he regularly sat out fourth quarters and only twice had to throw more than 25 passes in a game.
Asked about why he made the call that early, he mentioned wanting to focus on his high school team in the near future, but also something more basic.
“I knew where I wanted to be,” Luke said.
His parents gave him the advice to control his own destiny, and when he knew were he wanted to go, there was no sense in delaying things.
It wasn’t easy to watch his team go through the playoffs without him this year, but it offered a chance to lead in a different way. His coach, Mickey Wilson, said Doty didn’t pout, but poured energy into guiding his backup, Ryan Berger, and encouraging all his teammates.
Doty’s next step will take him a little farther from home, but also nearer to something close to him. His mother is from Greenwood, a short drive from Erskine and about halfway between Anderson and Columbia. In moving away from where his dad grew up, he moves a little closer to where his mom was raised and the family he still has there (his other grandparents live in Hickory, North Carolina, less than 2 1/2 hours from Columbia).
He’ll be competing with returning starter Ryan Hilinski and Colorado State grad transfer Collin Hill in the spring.
In some ways, the beach boy becomes the Carolina man, though he’s had that background all along.
“The distance part, two and a half hours off the road,” Luke said. “It’s pretty great. My parents can come see me for games on the weekends. If I ever need anything there, only two and a half hours away. So it makes it pretty easy for them. But there’s also, you know, some space for me to have my own time and stuff like that.”
Those moments before move-in
That 2 1/2-hour drive can be a benefit for child and family. Parents can drop in and a child can go home for a bit, but it’s not so close either side can be ever present at a time when independence is usually developing.
“It’s definitely a big plus!” Bobby Doty wrote. “He will have so much going on with school and football that whenever he can get away, it’s a short trip home. It also allows us the opportunity to visit with him there in Columbia, and it’s a quick day trip.”
The Dotys are already making plans to attend every home game, and perhaps a few on the road that are not too far.
And their son has a few plans looking forward and in the short term.
A strong student, he’s planning to be a biological sciences major, something he has had planned since he was young. That’s rigorous for most students, let alone ones with the responsibilities of football, but asked about balancing those, he fell back on the lessons his mother gave him about the importance of the classroom.
He described himself as someone who pursues knowledge, sometimes falling into YouTube rabbit holes about science or space or some other random topic.
And before he could leave home and enroll at South Carolina in early January, he had to check in on another kind of space: Star Wars.
“I love Star Wars,” Luke Doty said. “Star Wars is awesome.”
He took in the latest movie the weekend before Christmas, going with the whole family — everyone loved it.
The Dotys built up to it. In the semester he got to share a team with his brother as his parents looked on, he closed his time at home before moving away by digging in on a childhood favorite with the whole family involved.
“We’re catching up on Star Wars,” Doty said just before signing. “We’ve seen every single episode and watch all the movies and stuff. So Disney+ came out and we got right into it. We’re going back and rewatching from (the start).
“It’s been pretty fun just kind of going back and kind of reliving those those moments.”
Asked if he planned to see the movie with friends, he said it’s something special he shares with those closest to him.
“My family, we all love Star Wars,” Luke said. “Yeah, a bunch of my friends love it too, but I don’t think they’re into it like we are.”
This story was originally published January 5, 2020 at 5:00 AM.
