A New Desire

With professional athletes, the phrase “reinvesting in the community” comes up fairly often. It refers to the way players donate parts of their salary to certain charity organizations or community groups.

For Danny Wuerffel, however, the cost of contribution means more than just a simple financial donation. Wuerffel, who played seven seasons in the NFL after winning the Heisman Trophy and a national championship at Florida, is investing not only his money but also his life into the New Orleans community.

“On one hand, from the outside, it might appear like it’s really noble and sacrificial, but from my perspective it was just a natural thing to do next,” Wuerffel said. “It’s what I wanted to do and it made the most sense, so I was just thrilled with the opportunity.”

When Wuerffel was drafted by the New Orleans Saints in 1997, he was sent a brochure about Desire Street Ministries. Desire Street Ministries was founded in New Orleans’ 9th Ward, a predominantly black community, by Mo Leverett in 1990.

Since 1998, Wuerffel had been intermittently involved with various aspects of the ministry, but after he retired from the NFL last January, Wuerffel enthusiastically accepted the position of Director of Development.

“My plan was to try to keep playing and I was going to start working here part time, but I just felt so passionate about being here and the good I could do here,” Wuerffel said. “[My wife and I] were ready to settle down so it was a pretty easy decision at the time.

“I’ve been [in New Orleans] for so long and I’m so familiar with what’s going on. The whole story is amazing. You just can’t ignore the great things that are going on here so I just wanted to be a part of it.”

To many, however, the choice to leave fame and fortune does not appear so simple. Wuerffel’s NFL numbers were never outstanding, but it is almost certain that he would have made a professional roster, especially considering that only 17 of the league’s 32 teams had the same starting quarterback for every game in 2004.

“I feasibly could have been on a team and playing this year, but I was ready to move on and had something that I was looking forward to doing,” Wuerffel said. “This year I was watching training camp and I was just so thankful I was here.”

Desire Street Ministries is what served as the starting point for the Desire Street Academy program, where Wuerffel is the associate athletic director. DSA is a private Christian school for boys beginning in seventh grade through high school, which will graduate its first class next year. The school also has a partnership with Tulane that brings university students in to tutor DSA students.

“I’ve learned a lot about education regarding kids with disadvantages in life,” Newcomb College sophomore Krystina Kemp, Community Action Council of Tulane University Students’ program coordinator for ACT tutoring at Desire Street Academy, said. “Of course they don’t have the monetary advantages that most Tulane students had growing up.”

Wuerffel’s main focus now is the development and improvement of DSA, which has the goal of offsetting economic and social disadvantages by enhancing the students’ academics. The school is in its third year of existence and just received accreditation as a Class 1A Louisiana high school.

“The school’s in its third year; it’s relatively young, so it’s hard to gauge the impact on the community, but the impact on the kids is amazing,” Wuerffel said. “We’ve got kids whose lives have been transformed, whose character is being completely redefined and who are becoming young, noble, Christian gentlemen.”

With Wuerffel heading up the fundraising endeavor, DSA may now have the capability to pursue even larger goals.

“Obviously the name recognition helps because I get to speak [at events]; a lot and people return my phone calls,” Wuerffel said. “What I can do is open doors and introduce our story to people. I think we’ve got a great thing happening and I’m just getting the word out.”

While Wuerffel often tells comical and entertaining stories of his grueling days as a football player, it appears as though his current job is far more difficult than his former occupation.

“I’m in charge of raising money for the whole thing; it’s hard work,” he said. “I’m the director of all development so I’m in charge of all of the gathering of resources, public relations and marketing. I basically raise everybody’s support that doesn’t have to raise their own.

“Part of my goal is to help us develop the infrastructure and get the resources to help this do the most benefit it can do. Definitely the lack of major corporations in New Orleans makes it tougher to get people to jump in and help, but we’re working away and people are starting to know about us. When you have a huge goal and a big vision, it’s all worth it.”

Naturally, one of Wuerffel’s goals along the way is to build a new football field in the vacant lot across the street from the ministry and the school.

“We’re going to be a full high school next year and competing in Class 1A, so we need to have a field to practice and play on,” he said. “We don’t even have a field to practice on. The school needs to grow, we need a football field, we need more things here in the next few years. In order for the work to really accomplish its goal it needs to expand.”

Obviously, Wuerffel’s name has contributed to the growing awareness of the ministry and the school. Leverett joked that, since Wuerffel’s arrival, every day has been media day at the ministry.

“We’ve had a lot of exposure,” Wuerffel said. “We’ve been on CNN, Sports Illustrated, Fox Sports Channel. It generates interest and it gets people involved and inevitably leads to more resources. Our name is getting out there.”

In addition to drawing the attention of the sports and news media, Wuerffel has also enthused DSA’s students.

“It’s cool to have a Heisman Trophy winner here at our school; it’s amazing,” 14-year-old student Josh Edwards said. “Danny is a great leader. He helps us out with everything. If you’re going through bad stuff he’ll talk to you about it. He gave up his football career just to come here and help us out at the ministry.”

In return for the time he spends with DSA’s students, Wuerffel receives immeasurable encouragement.

“I’m inspired by a whole new batch of heroes,” he said. “I’m amazed at what they’ve overcome with a lack of parental guidance, consistency and love.

“The environment that they grow up in is a community with a lot of exposure to drugs and violence. To see them overcome that is something that is hard to put into perspective because most of us didn’t have to overcome near that to be where we are.”

One of the most stunning aspects of Wuerffel’s career change is the drastic change in pay. The current minimum wage for someone with his experience in the NFL is $650,000 per season and urban ministry is not known for being a highly paid profession.

While many people would struggle to adjust to such an economic adjustment, Wuerffel and his wife, Jessica, always made a priority of being responsible with their finances in order to prepare for their current situation.

“I come from a frugal family, so we lived very modestly even while I was playing,” Wuerffel said. “We gave away a lot and we saved a lot. We didn’t spend much on ourselves and we actually have the exact same budget now that we did when I was playing. The trick is to not live up to your means; live up to where you need to be.”

Nonetheless, despite an increase in workload coupled with a decrease in pay, Wuerffel is more content at Desire Street Ministries than he has ever been at any job.

“When people ask me if I’ll coach, my answer is that if you had five lives to live, one of them might be to coach, but since you have one life to live — and as a Christian one life to give — you have to choose very carefully where you invest your life,” Wuerffel said. “If it wasn’t for the ministry we probably wouldn’t be living here, but this is where God wants us to be. In terms of the circumstances of our lives, it’s probably not one thing, it’s a combination of several things that make it clear that right now at this point this is where we’re supposed to be.”

Wuerffel does confess to having dreams of founding a similar ministry in a different area at some point, but his heart will always remain in the Desire Street neighborhood.

“If that happens and the time is right, I might be able to help another place get started, but that’s a little farther down the road,” he said. “There are a lot of things as the years go by that could be on our radar screen, but to one level or another, this ministry will always be part of our lives.

“This is what we’re invested in.”