- Sep 8, 2014
- 25,449
- 59,476
Nice story on one of the greatest Gators of all time!
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/florida-football/danny-wuerffel-fight-for-forgotten-america/
Danny Wuerffel and the fight for forgotten America
Former Heisman Trophy-Winning Quarterback is helping to rebuild America, one community at a time
By Al Blanton
ATLANTA — Inside a two-story periwinkle house in a blighted section of Atlanta, “Honey Bun” shoots up a tiny hand. Today is Bible drill at PAW Kids, a nonprofit for underprivileged children located in a deep recess of the city, a place adorned with billboards for 1-800 attorneys, graffiti-sprayed buildings and dilapidating pawnshops. Today, the children have arrived eagerly, shedding their backpacks in a colored clump on the front porch before encircling a large table inside, where Kool-Aid Jammers and Cheez Doodles are systematically spread. Standing over them, clutching a laminated sheet of paper, Latonya Gates-Boston calls out verses, one by one.
“Jesus wept,” Latonya asks.
“Ooh! Ooh!” shouts Honey Bun, stretching her arm toward the sky.
John 11:35.
The children of PAW Kids come from broken homes, and often their stories are cringeworthy. Many of their parents cannot read. Some have parents who don’t want them. Others live in homes with no running water. Every afternoon, Latonya’s goal is to inject positivity and encouragement into the lives of these children, displacing bad for good, the rancidness of the world for the nectar of Jesus Christ.
Years ago in this same house, it is doubtful that many Bible verses were recited here. The house was once a den of iniquity, a drug and prostitution shack where holes in the floors were used for a dope drop and a stripper pole was installed in the very same room that Honey Bun now sits. Doubtful also was that a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback would ever darken the doors of this place, but today, Danny Wuerffel walks across the creaking floors and high-fives the children. In the realm of spiritual warfare, here, good seems to have won.
For the past decade, Wuerffel has been the Executive Director of Desire Street Ministries, a multi-city effort, now in 12 neighborhoods across the South, centered on transforming depressed, poverty-ravaged areas into robust communities. To that end, Desire Street partners with organizations like PAW Kids and individuals like Latonya to bring hope to a forgotten America.
But instead he has decided to pour his life into the lives of those to which the world has turned a blind eye
Right off the bat, one might wonder why a man with such a football history and accolades as Wuerffel would forsake lucrative business opportunities in his post-NFL career to invest in the hardscrabble areas of America. In 2008, the former Florida Gator moved to — of all places, Atlanta — to grow Desire Street into a national ministry. To the world, this seems counterintuitive. Surely with the amount of fame and connections at Wuerffel’s disposal, he could have pursued avenues that were more personally beneficial, or ridden off into the sunset with a bundle of cash and nothing to do. But instead he has decided to pour his life into the lives of those to which the world has turned a blind eye, to the places where the Disease of Me has not positively infected.
Early Years
Danny Wuerffel, the son of Air Force chaplain Lt. Col. Jon Wuerffel and his wife Lola, an organist and choir director, spent the formidable years of his youth touring America, his jagged crisscrossing of the Continental U.S., a cruel yet edifying reality of the military life. The Wuerffel family lived in Colorado, Nebraska, South Carolina and Spain before settling down in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, before Danny’s ninth grade year. Each move brought new opportunities and discouraging moments, young Danny passing through his friends’ lives briefly before leaving them to find new ones. “It helped me to see that there was a lot of different ways to think and live,” Wuerffel told SDS. “It’s not one is right or wrong, it’s just different. A lot of people that live in certain places their whole life get into thinking and living in a bit of a bubble. And just to see the world from different trajectories was super important.”
Jon invested in his son’s life by introducing him to activities that often required a certain degree of skill. Whether riding dirt bikes high in the Colorado mountains across the rugged terrain or playing a grueling game of racquetball, these exercises were critical to the development of Wuerffel’s agility, balance, reaction and hand-eye coordination.
Wuerffel started playing football in the seventh grade, but it wasn’t until he arrived in Florida that he witnessed the full intensity of the game. “It was a lot more intense than I ever experienced,” he said, speaking of football in the Sunshine State. “I was more of a basketball player in Colorado. And we got out there and there were big guys and they were smashing and it was crazy. I kicked a field goal through the uprights and threw a spiral. So all of a sudden I had 35 great friends on Day 2.”
By that time, Jon and Lola had instilled a set of core ideals into their son, the perfect trifecta of faith and family, academics and sports. In terms of faith, the Wuerffel’s strident Lutheran ancestry traced back to Germany, threading its way through paternal generations to his father. “Faith,” Wuerffel says, “has always been a part of my family’s heritage and lineage. Some people wonder if we are related to Martin Luther.”
Wuerffel sat in on his father’s sermons and listened to him read the Bible aloud to his family. Certain of divine existence, Wuerffel never wrestled with the questions, “Is God Present? Is He Real? Does He love me?” but instead wondered how faith might play out in his life.
“There was such a stability in my life that was grounded on faith,” he says.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the total package was Wuerffel’s academic proficiency. Regardless of geography, Wuerffel hit the books and was a top student, eventually graduating as Valedictorian of his class at Ft. Walton Beach High School.
By his junior season, a tide of attention began to flow in, as Wuerffel became the star quarterback in the Florida panhandle under the tutelage of coach Jimmy Ray Stephens. Letters poured in his junior year, and his first unofficial visit was to LSU. “I was just blown away,” Wuerffel says of his experience.
More would arrive. His first official visit was to Alabama in the fall of 1992 — “and I was ready to sign with Alabama right at the end of that weekend,” Wuerffel says. “Coach (Gene) Stallings was amazing. I have so much respect for him.”
Then Wuerffel took a trip to Tallahassee and, impressed with Bobby Bowden and FSU, was ready to sign. But there was one more school that factored into the mix, and a head ball coach who wasn’t about to let a quarterback the caliber of Danny Wuerffel slip through his fingers.
The Spurrier Years
A thick fog choked the skies over Niceville, Fla., as a plane carrying Steve Spurrier braced for a dangerous landing. The short flight from Gainesville was scheduled to land in Destin, but the fog diverted the plane to Niceville, 45 minutes away. Limping to the ground, the plane touched the airport tarmac shaken but unscathed. Having urgent business with their son, Spurrier loaded a rental car and drove to the home of Jon and Lola Wuerffel. Spurrier knew that if he was going to land this prospect, he’d have to deal with more than a little fog.
As it turns out, Spurrier’s recruiting tactics were a bit unorthodox. During the process, Wuerffel remembers Spurrier producing tapes of Florida quarterback Shane Matthews — a lanky, sun-tanned gunslinger originally from Pascagoula, Miss. The purpose of these exercises was not to boast the greatness of Matthews (many of the tapes were of games where Matthews didn’t play particularly well) but to plant a seed in the tenderfoot’s mind. “I just remember, ‘Yep, yep, if you would have been here, you would have hit that one! Oh yep! You wouldn’t have missed that one!'” Wuerffel says, his voice morphing into a Spurrier-like imitation. “He literally had me believing I may be better than Shane. And I get there as a freshman and I see (Matthews) and I’m like, ‘This guy’s awesome!'”
Photo Credit: University of Florida Athletics
(continued):
https://www.saturdaydownsouth.com/florida-football/danny-wuerffel-fight-for-forgotten-america/
Danny Wuerffel and the fight for forgotten America
Former Heisman Trophy-Winning Quarterback is helping to rebuild America, one community at a time
By Al Blanton
ATLANTA — Inside a two-story periwinkle house in a blighted section of Atlanta, “Honey Bun” shoots up a tiny hand. Today is Bible drill at PAW Kids, a nonprofit for underprivileged children located in a deep recess of the city, a place adorned with billboards for 1-800 attorneys, graffiti-sprayed buildings and dilapidating pawnshops. Today, the children have arrived eagerly, shedding their backpacks in a colored clump on the front porch before encircling a large table inside, where Kool-Aid Jammers and Cheez Doodles are systematically spread. Standing over them, clutching a laminated sheet of paper, Latonya Gates-Boston calls out verses, one by one.
“Jesus wept,” Latonya asks.
“Ooh! Ooh!” shouts Honey Bun, stretching her arm toward the sky.
John 11:35.
The children of PAW Kids come from broken homes, and often their stories are cringeworthy. Many of their parents cannot read. Some have parents who don’t want them. Others live in homes with no running water. Every afternoon, Latonya’s goal is to inject positivity and encouragement into the lives of these children, displacing bad for good, the rancidness of the world for the nectar of Jesus Christ.
Years ago in this same house, it is doubtful that many Bible verses were recited here. The house was once a den of iniquity, a drug and prostitution shack where holes in the floors were used for a dope drop and a stripper pole was installed in the very same room that Honey Bun now sits. Doubtful also was that a Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback would ever darken the doors of this place, but today, Danny Wuerffel walks across the creaking floors and high-fives the children. In the realm of spiritual warfare, here, good seems to have won.
For the past decade, Wuerffel has been the Executive Director of Desire Street Ministries, a multi-city effort, now in 12 neighborhoods across the South, centered on transforming depressed, poverty-ravaged areas into robust communities. To that end, Desire Street partners with organizations like PAW Kids and individuals like Latonya to bring hope to a forgotten America.
But instead he has decided to pour his life into the lives of those to which the world has turned a blind eye
Right off the bat, one might wonder why a man with such a football history and accolades as Wuerffel would forsake lucrative business opportunities in his post-NFL career to invest in the hardscrabble areas of America. In 2008, the former Florida Gator moved to — of all places, Atlanta — to grow Desire Street into a national ministry. To the world, this seems counterintuitive. Surely with the amount of fame and connections at Wuerffel’s disposal, he could have pursued avenues that were more personally beneficial, or ridden off into the sunset with a bundle of cash and nothing to do. But instead he has decided to pour his life into the lives of those to which the world has turned a blind eye, to the places where the Disease of Me has not positively infected.
Early Years
Danny Wuerffel, the son of Air Force chaplain Lt. Col. Jon Wuerffel and his wife Lola, an organist and choir director, spent the formidable years of his youth touring America, his jagged crisscrossing of the Continental U.S., a cruel yet edifying reality of the military life. The Wuerffel family lived in Colorado, Nebraska, South Carolina and Spain before settling down in Ft. Walton Beach, Florida, before Danny’s ninth grade year. Each move brought new opportunities and discouraging moments, young Danny passing through his friends’ lives briefly before leaving them to find new ones. “It helped me to see that there was a lot of different ways to think and live,” Wuerffel told SDS. “It’s not one is right or wrong, it’s just different. A lot of people that live in certain places their whole life get into thinking and living in a bit of a bubble. And just to see the world from different trajectories was super important.”
Jon invested in his son’s life by introducing him to activities that often required a certain degree of skill. Whether riding dirt bikes high in the Colorado mountains across the rugged terrain or playing a grueling game of racquetball, these exercises were critical to the development of Wuerffel’s agility, balance, reaction and hand-eye coordination.
Wuerffel started playing football in the seventh grade, but it wasn’t until he arrived in Florida that he witnessed the full intensity of the game. “It was a lot more intense than I ever experienced,” he said, speaking of football in the Sunshine State. “I was more of a basketball player in Colorado. And we got out there and there were big guys and they were smashing and it was crazy. I kicked a field goal through the uprights and threw a spiral. So all of a sudden I had 35 great friends on Day 2.”
By that time, Jon and Lola had instilled a set of core ideals into their son, the perfect trifecta of faith and family, academics and sports. In terms of faith, the Wuerffel’s strident Lutheran ancestry traced back to Germany, threading its way through paternal generations to his father. “Faith,” Wuerffel says, “has always been a part of my family’s heritage and lineage. Some people wonder if we are related to Martin Luther.”
Wuerffel sat in on his father’s sermons and listened to him read the Bible aloud to his family. Certain of divine existence, Wuerffel never wrestled with the questions, “Is God Present? Is He Real? Does He love me?” but instead wondered how faith might play out in his life.
“There was such a stability in my life that was grounded on faith,” he says.
Perhaps the most overlooked aspect of the total package was Wuerffel’s academic proficiency. Regardless of geography, Wuerffel hit the books and was a top student, eventually graduating as Valedictorian of his class at Ft. Walton Beach High School.
By his junior season, a tide of attention began to flow in, as Wuerffel became the star quarterback in the Florida panhandle under the tutelage of coach Jimmy Ray Stephens. Letters poured in his junior year, and his first unofficial visit was to LSU. “I was just blown away,” Wuerffel says of his experience.
More would arrive. His first official visit was to Alabama in the fall of 1992 — “and I was ready to sign with Alabama right at the end of that weekend,” Wuerffel says. “Coach (Gene) Stallings was amazing. I have so much respect for him.”
Then Wuerffel took a trip to Tallahassee and, impressed with Bobby Bowden and FSU, was ready to sign. But there was one more school that factored into the mix, and a head ball coach who wasn’t about to let a quarterback the caliber of Danny Wuerffel slip through his fingers.
The Spurrier Years
A thick fog choked the skies over Niceville, Fla., as a plane carrying Steve Spurrier braced for a dangerous landing. The short flight from Gainesville was scheduled to land in Destin, but the fog diverted the plane to Niceville, 45 minutes away. Limping to the ground, the plane touched the airport tarmac shaken but unscathed. Having urgent business with their son, Spurrier loaded a rental car and drove to the home of Jon and Lola Wuerffel. Spurrier knew that if he was going to land this prospect, he’d have to deal with more than a little fog.
As it turns out, Spurrier’s recruiting tactics were a bit unorthodox. During the process, Wuerffel remembers Spurrier producing tapes of Florida quarterback Shane Matthews — a lanky, sun-tanned gunslinger originally from Pascagoula, Miss. The purpose of these exercises was not to boast the greatness of Matthews (many of the tapes were of games where Matthews didn’t play particularly well) but to plant a seed in the tenderfoot’s mind. “I just remember, ‘Yep, yep, if you would have been here, you would have hit that one! Oh yep! You wouldn’t have missed that one!'” Wuerffel says, his voice morphing into a Spurrier-like imitation. “He literally had me believing I may be better than Shane. And I get there as a freshman and I see (Matthews) and I’m like, ‘This guy’s awesome!'”
(continued):
Last edited: