The name Danny Wuerffel – especially to fans of the game since the 1990s – is synonymous with college football greatness. Wuerffel is a Heisman Trophy winner, a National Champion, and a College Football Hall of Famer. A Florida-native, Wuerffel is widely known for his prolific career at the University of Florida where he led the Steve Spurrier-coached Gators to four SEC Championships and Florida’s first National Football Championship in 1996 as the team’s star quarterback.
Today, he remains well connected to the sports world and a big fan of his Gators. But his post-football career has been all about giving back. After retiring from football, Wuerffel has energetically pursued a second career and life in philanthropy and community service. His mission for the past 15+ years has been to inspire greater service in the world.
Even Wuerffel acknowledges that when he looks back at a life that includes these paths – from football to humanitarian pursuits – it sometimes seems “weird” even to him:
“I look at my life sometimes and wonder if all the things really happened or not. Some tremendous highs – winning a National Championship and the Heisman – and some lows – like Hurricane Katrina and some illnesses – but it was all part of my story that got me here where I end up doing what I’m doing.”
♦◊♦
And what is he doing?
Well. A few things.
Following his retirement, Wuerffel joined Desire Street Ministries –an organization he began working with during his time at the New Orleans Saints –and serves as Executive Director of the organization:
“I fell in love with the people, while I was working in the 9th Ward in New Orleans, and started helping, and over time it has evolved to where Desire Street has much larger reach. We partner with leaders that live and serve in really difficult neighborhoods and help them to be effective. My life was impacted greatly by a series of great coaches, like Coach Spurrier…and we see amazing people trying to do really hard work without the support and resources that they need, so that’s where Desire Street comes in.”
A true grassroots on-the-ground organization, Desire Street helps communities in need to be effective, thriving, and sustainable by revitalizing and supporting under-resourced neighborhood leaders. Their current goal is to impact twenty neighborhoods by 2025.
“My hope to inspire a greater sense of service and unity in the world. We love to highlight people doing tremendous work and service – like with the Wuerffel Trophy – and work towards creating healing and unity in a polarized world.”
A member of the National College Football Awards Association (NCFAA), The Wuerffel Trophy is presented annually to the FBS player who best combines exemplary community service with leadership achievement on and off the field. Previous recipients include Tim Tebow, Sam Acho, Matt Barkley, and last year’s recipient Teton Saltes, whose service endeavors in 2020 ranged from working on Native American reservations to helping food-needy communities and at a crisis hotline for mental health when the COVID pandemic hit:
“The exciting part is seeing 100+ college athletes being nominated. The hard part is that so many deserve to win the award and to have their story told. So one of my hopes is to be able to highlight and honor not only the winner, but others, because there are so many good stories that deserve to be told.”
The award itself has proved to be an incredible mechanism to bubble up these amazing stories of those athletes doing community service, which might otherwise not be widely known or considered to be “newsworthy”:
“I’m very proud of all the winners and nominees. Often they are not otherwise very visible. They often are not the marquee players or stars. But these are tremendously important people doing incredible work that should be spotlighted.”
♦◊♦
A few central values run through and motivate Wuerffel’s life and work.
First, he understands the power and importance of mentorship and guidance, and that while he was fortunate to have a terrific family and amazing coaches and others that helped him to succeed, many who are just as talented and deserving need that same help:
“A lot of different people at different times in my life have really helped me. I think when you’re younger and you have some success, its pretty easy to overestimate how much of that is just your own talent and work-ethic. Of course you need to work hard to succeed. But as you get older you realize how fortunate, blessed, privileged you are.”
Second, Wuerffel recognizes that everyone has value and needs resources and support: “Everyone having tremendous worth by virtue of being human is a core value of my work – even though we in society constantly assign more or less value to people.”
To illustrate this point, he relays a story about the value of sports memorabilia that he has auctioned off, in advance of the annual Desire Cup golf tournament and fundraiser benefitting Desire Street Ministries that highlights past great coaches and players for the schools and takes place ahead of the iconic University of Florida vs. University of Georgia rivalry football game. After auctioning off a football signed by Wuerffel and former football great Herschel Walker for $10,000, Wuerffel had the idea to conduct a thought experiment about value and to auction off a signed football that a group of kids had given to him as a thank you for the work he did in their inner-city neighborhood: “Why is the other ball worth $10K and this is worth nothing?” Today, that football has been auctioned off and returned yearly and has raised $150,000 to date, making it “the most expensive autographed football in history that we know of, and that’s an incredible statement.”
This year’s 11th Annual Desire Cup is slated for October. Wuerffel will be there, along with Coach Spurrier and a host of other former Florida and Georgia players and coaches, continuing his life’s work of serving communities in need and inspiring others to do the same.
View this post on Instagram
—
Photo Credits: Desire Street Ministries (cover and Wuerffel Trophy images), University of Florida Athletics (Wuerffel QB image) and SEC Network/ESPN (video re auctioned football), all with permission
