Danny Wuerffel

Daniel Carl Wuerffel (born May 27, 1974) is a former American college and professional football player who won the 1996 Heisman Trophy and the 1996 national football championship while playing college football for the University of Florida. After graduating from Florida, he played for four National Football League (NFL) teams, and retired from professional football in 2002. Since then, Wuerffel has led a non-profit organization engaged in Christian mission and charitable work in Alabama, Florida, Georgia and Louisiana.

Early life
Danny Wuerffel was born in Pensacola, Florida in 1974, the son of a Lutheran minister who was a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force. While he was growing up, he and his family lived in South Carolina, Spain, Nebraska and Colorado before he attended Fort Walton Beach High School in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Wuerffel was a standout high school football and basketball player for the Fort Walton Beach Vikings. In football, he led the Vikings to an undefeated season as a senior quarterback, while winning the Florida Class 4A state football championship in 1991 and earning the No. 2 national ranking in USA Today. Wuerffel was widely considered the top high school football recruit in the state of Florida, and USA Today's high school player of the year in Florida during his senior year. He graduated from high school as his class valedictorian.

College career
Wuerffel accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played quarterback for head coach Steve Spurrier's Florida Gators football team from 1993 to 1996. One of the most decorated players in Florida's football history, he was a key member of the Gators teams that won four consecutive Southeastern Conference (SEC) titles between 1993 and 1996. He led the Gators to the Bowl Alliance national championship game following the 1995 season, but ultimately lost 62–24 to the Nebraska Cornhuskers in the Fiesta Bowl. Wuerffel won the 1996 Heisman Trophy while quarterbacking the Gators into their second consecutive Bowl Alliance national championship game with help from teammates Fred Taylor at running back, Reidel Anthony, Ike Hilliard and Jacquez Green at wide receiver, and Jeff Mitchell on the offensive line. Wuerffel and the Gators won the 1996 national championship in decisive fashion by defeating the Florida State Seminoles 52–20 in the Sugar Bowl.

Wuerffel was a first-team All-American in 1995, and a consensus first-team All-American in 1996. He received the Sammy Baugh Trophy in 1995, the Davey O'Brien Award in 1995 and 1996, and the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm Award in 1996, and was named the Quarterback of the Year by the Touchdown Club of Columbus in 1996. Wuerffel declined to be included on Playboy magazine's All-America team as well as its Scholar-Athlete of the Year award, saying, "That's not the type of person I am or would like to portray myself as." His Gators teammates picked him as the squad's most valuable player in 1995 and 1996; his coaches chose him as one of the Gators' team captains. He was later named to The Gainesville Sun's Florida Gators Team of the Century in 1999, was chosen the century's top Gator offensive player by the Sun, and was listed as a member of the Florida Gators 100th Anniversary Team in 2006.

He finished his Gator career by completing 708 of 1,170 passes for 10,875 yards with 114 touchdown passes, the best in SEC history and second-most in major college history. His career pass efficiency rating of 163.56 was the best in major college history and his percentage of passes which went for a touchdown (9.74) ranked first in collegiate history. In 1995, his efficiency rating of 178.4 set a single-season collegiate record. During his Heisman-winning season of 1996, he completed 207 of 360 passes for 3,625 yards (an SEC record at the time) for thirty-nine touchdowns (leading the nation) and his efficiency rating of 170.6 made him the first quarterback to ever post a rating of 170 or better in back-to-back years.

He is the only Heisman Trophy winner to also receive the Draddy Trophy, which is presented annually by the National Football Foundation and the College Football Hall of Fame to the nation's top football scholar-athlete. Wuerffel was also a first-team Academic All-American in 1995 and 1996.

Wuerffel graduated from the university with a bachelor's degree in public relations, and was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great" in 2006.

Career stats at Florida
Most Pass Attempts
 * Career : 1,169
 * Season : 360 (1996)
 * Game : 50 (1993) at Auburn

Most Pass Completions
 * Career : 708
 * Season : 210 (1995)
 * Game : 29 (1995) vs. Tennessee

Most Pass Yards
 * Career : 10,875
 * Season : 3,625 (1996)
 * Game : 462 (1996) vs. Arkansas

Professional career
The New Orleans Saints selected Wuerffel in the fourth round of the 1997 NFL Draft, and he played for the Saints for three seasons from 1997 to 1999. After playing a single season for each of the Green Bay Packers, Chicago Bears and Washington Redskins, Wuerffel retired. One highlight of his professional career was winning the MVP award in World Bowl 2000 while playing for Rhein Fire in NFL Europa, the Fire winning by 13–10 over the Scottish Claymores).

Life after the NFL
Wuerffel began work at Desire Street Ministries, a non-profit faith-based organization focusing on spiritual and community development in one of the poorest areas of New Orleans. He also speaks to college groups, such as the University of Florida Fellowship of Christian Athletes. In 2004, Wuerffel co-authored a book called Tales from the Gator Swamp, in which he covers his college football career at Florida.

For his exemplary achievements on and off the field, the All Sports Association of Fort Walton Beach created the Wuerffel Trophy in his honor in 2005. It is to be awarded annually to the athlete who best exemplifies the character and play on the field that Wuerffel achieved. Due to his student-athlete accomplishments, moral integrity, and spiritual inspiration, a small stretch of road between the Mid-Bay Bridge and Highway 98 in Destin has been dedicated as Danny Wuerffel Way by the Florida state legislature.

Hurricane Katrina destroyed Wuerffel's New Orleans home and the Desire Street Ministries facilities. He made national news with his calls to action and plans to rebuild Desire Street Ministries and New Orleans.

On September 30, 2006, Wuerffel was inducted into the Gator Football Ring of Honor alongside his former coach Steve Spurrier and two other Gator legends, Jack Youngblood and Emmitt Smith.

In June 2011, The Gainesville Sun reported that Wuerffel was suffering from Guillain–Barré syndrome, a disorder of the nervous system, and was undergoing treatment for it.