Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: College Football Legend Danny Wuerffel

I recently interviewed Danny Wuerffel on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: Our guest today was one of the greatest college football players of all time. Danny Warfel is a Heisman Trophy winner, a college football Hall of Famer, and the namesake behind the Warfel Trophy, college football's premier Award for Community Service. Danny, thank you for joining us.

Danny: Thanks for having me on the podcast. I’m looking forward to visiting with you.

Adam: Thanks for being here. Danny, your dad was a chaplain in the Air Force and you lived all over the country and even around the world before becoming a high school star in Fort Walton Beach, Florida. Can you take listeners back to your early days? What experiences and lessons were most instrumental to shaping your worldview and to shaping the trajectory of your success?

Danny: Yeah, you know, it is a very unique experience to grow up in the Air Force and to move every three years, sometimes less. A couple things that I take away that I think about often now is to live in different parts of the country, different cultures, even within America than to live overseas especially, you notice that a lot of times people live and do things very differently. It's easy to assume, human nature assumes typically that something that's different is usually wrong, or not as good. But sometimes things that are different are different. People took siestas in Spain and ate dinner later. And there are a lot of different ways that people live and different types of cultures and traditions. And I think I learned to appreciate and respect a lot of that diversity growing up, and that there's not just one way to be human. So that was one thing. The other thing that I think I experienced was, it's really hard as a kid to get your friend group, to get your place, and then have to uproot. But for me, sports was a great transition tool, and everywhere I'd go, I'd end up playing on a team and have friends right away. And the camaraderie of being on a team really helped me grow as a young man during all these moves.

Adam: I love it. There isn't only one way to be human, appreciate the differences in others, learn from others, and the power of sports, and we're going to talk about that throughout the conversation. Starting off with the fact that when you were in high school in Florida, you were the best player in the entire state. You were also the co-valedictorian of your class. Every university in America would have loved to have had you as the quarterback at their school, but you chose to play ball at the University of Florida. What did Florida do during the recruiting process that persuaded you to become a Gator? And what were the best lessons you learned on recruiting that would be applicable to anyone listening? What did you learn from that experience?

Danny: Well, I can tell you, they didn't offer me a big deal. I'll deal mostly content with that and maybe slightly better at some of these deals about these high school kids today. But for me, it came down to really two reasons why I chose Florida. My final three schools were Alabama, Florida State, and Florida. All three are great programs. And at the time, I just had so much respect for all the coaches Gene Stallings at Alabama, Bobby Bowden at Florida State, and Steve Spurrier at Florida. I think first of all, as a quarterback coach, Spurrier had just such a proven track record with quarterbacks, and the way they threw the ball was really dynamic. The chance to play for him a former Heisman Trophy winner himself, was very intriguing, but also I asked myself the question, if I weren't playing football, which of these three schools would I attend? And without question, they're all three very good schools. But Florida is really an elite public university. In fact, nowadays, it's a number five ranked public university and even back then it was just head and shoulders and an amazing school. So those were two of the reasons why I went there. In terms of your question about recruiting, I think Coach Spurrier did something really smart. He often just showed me a piece of paper with the statistics like look, this is how many yards we throw in each game. Look at how many Alabama throws, look at how many Florida State throws. If you're a quarterback that likes to throw and have fun, there's documented evidence that it's probably going to happen more for you here. So I think that's appealing to your head is this idea of your mindset. The other thing that they all did a tremendous job of doing was really making me have a vision of what it would be like, had I chosen their school, really working on my heart. I remember my first trip to Alabama, I went in the locker room, and they had an Alabama jersey with my name on it. And I was like, are you kidding me? This is so cool. They really want me, I can see myself here. And I didn't know it at the time, but they do that for everybody. But that was my first experience. And just the way that each of those schools really tried to make you feel like you are joining a family more than just a process or a job. And incent seizure illustrations. I think the combination of really sharing the data of why it's important to be there, but also some of the intangible things of what it means again, to be human, and to be part of something that draws us in as well.

Adam: You brought up Steve Spurrier's name a couple of times, one of the great coaches in the history of college football. What made Steve Spurrier a great coach and a great leader? And what were the best lessons that you learned from your time spent with Steve Spurrier?

Danny: So he has a unique combination that I don't think you find in many leaders in football or in life. I don't want to overstate it, but I don't want to understate it either. He had this perfectionistic somewhat maniacal way of drawing up specific plays, the way the routes had to be run, the exact footsteps of the quarterback, where your face is pointing, where your eyes are looking. It was so meticulous, it almost seemed like it was so much and so there's the side of him that was so, so precise. However, there was also another side to him. That was very adaptive. And it's all shocks while you're the bottle cap and you run out and turn left, and you just hit him and he could make adjustments so fluidly that a lot of times when I've seen coaches that were very precise, like him, it'd be like, well, we can't run that play. We've got to do a study for three years and see how it worked across all different types of defenses and spur halftime, we just invent a play and be very, very creative. So there's this combination of his preciseness on the fundamentals and his creativity, and fluidity is kind of like a scientist and an artist at the same time. And then there's a really unique flexibility about him that I thought was really powerful. And then one other lesson I learned from him is he really channeled his intense energy into certain times. He didn't go 1000 miles an hour, every day. So for instance, on Saturday and Sunday after a game, there was a much more relaxed, we had sort of a Monday night scrimmage. We called it on Monday and the younger guys played and it was more fun and but as the week got closer to game day, you could see his focus really sharpen and why he's, I'm learning is you really only have so much good mental energy, so much good emotional energy each day, each week each month. And if you're not careful, and you try to burn it all the time, everywhere, you're going to constantly be leading or working out of a bit of a deficit. But if you can channel and focus and decide when you're going to go all out. And then when you're not, that's just as important to be the most healthy and the most effective.

Adam: Those are such great lessons. Starting off with the importance of being in the weeds and being on top of the details. Through all of my conversations with hundreds of America's top leaders, I put together a list of the seven core traits that are common among the very best leaders. And in that list is flexibility. The best leaders are adaptive, the best leaders, to your point, don't take three years to figure out how to pivot, don't take three years to figure out how to draw a new play. The last point you made is so important. You can't work 24/7. And if you do work 24/7, you're not going to be effective for many of those hours. It's truly about channeling your energy properly, channeling your focus. We all only have so much in the tank. Make sure that you're using it to the best of your ability. Absolutely. What do you believe are the key characteristics of a great leader? And what can anyone do to become a better leader?

Danny: Well, I wish I had your list in front of me. Because you've, you've studied it a lot, a lot more than I do. Part of it comes down to context a little bit. There are different skill sets and different things. But, to me, another incredible fundamental characteristic of leadership is this, we use the term coachability, humility, or teachability. And you can be the smartest person in the room and think you are, and you can go a long way. And there are some examples of guys that have done that. But I think, to succeed at a high level for a long time, you have to be open to feedback and open to criticism. You have to be almost seeking, like build it into your rhythm where you personally had people giving you feedback. And people that don't just work for you, or report to you, or have some reason why they're not going to be brutally honest. But I have always had a group of friends, a group of people that I meet with, that are brutally honest with me, more than I wish a lot of the times, seeking that feedback. Having a curious mind, I think curiosity fits in that same category of something that's just really, really critical to leadership, that would be one. I think another one is to the concept, different words for it. But we use the word resilience, things are going to be tough things never go well. You're leading people, if you're trying to do anything of significance, there's always seems like a challenge around every corner. And so how do you manage those personally? How do you manage those within your culture? What do you think about managing difficult times, doing that? And doing it in a productive way is a key skill. We call that resilience. Another term that we use that I think is just key. In my foundation, we talked about unity and desire. We use the concept of a bridge builder, somebody that can help people that may not always see eye to eye come together, work together, can unite different types of groups, and different types of people, and help be a mediator, a peacemaker. So right off the top of my head, those three that come to my mind are humility, peace, resilience, and then also this idea of bridge-building or culture-making.

Adam: Danny you shared so much there to unpack, starting off with the importance of being coachable. One of the early guests on Thirty Minute Mentors was General Martin Dempsey, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the highest-ranking military officer in America. And one of General Dempsey’s core principles of effective leadership is that before you can become a great leader, you need to be a great follower. You need to be coachable. You need to be open to feedback. Something that I heard from another guest of this podcast, Bill George, former CEO of Medtronic, feedback is the breakfast of champions. Oh, love that. I told him, Bill, I thought Wheaties was the breakfast of champions. But Danny, you're a champion. You lead Florida to the first championship in school history. You wouldn't have gotten there without seeking feedback.

Danny: Adam, Coach Spurrier, I think he kind of jokes sometimes, but somebody had asked him after a game, what it was like being able to coach me. And he said, “Well, you know, Danny's not that talented. He's just highly coachable”. It was kind of a compliment. Maybe, not sure, but definitely makes the point. I love it.

Adam: Curiosity, resilience, focusing on bringing people together, humility, love, it is something you sprinkled in there, in mentioning resilience, the importance of being able to overcome whatever obstacles we face. And along the way, you had incredible highs but also some lows. You were the best player in high school. You were the best player in college. You made it to the NFL. But once you were in the NFL, you struggled. You bounced around you and were a backup quarterback for the six years you were in the league before ultimately deciding to retire. How did you navigate those struggles? And what are your sharpest memories and takeaways from your time playing professional football?

Danny: Yeah, I really feel very blessed and honored that I played in the league for even that many years. In order to be successful at any level. You've got to be in the right place, at the right time, with the right people, teammates, and coach. And at any level, if that doesn't come together, it doesn't work. And when I look back, I mean, in high school and college, even played an NFL Europe in 2000. And we won the World Bowl. I was like, in an ideal situation, way more than anybody deserves. And so I really when I look back, I'm just very grateful. Part of me wonders. But I found the right situation and might have had more success in the NFL, but also that I also recognize that there are certain skill sets that caught up to me a little bit to where I could look, for one, I didn't have an incredibly strong arm. But my other skill sets were able to make up for that all the way through college, whereas not as well in the NFL. So I just think about the gratitude of it to me, the relationships that I made, the connections that I made, the different places that I got to live, all were really shaping who I was. But again, I feel like from a football perspective, I was more blessed to be in the right spot, way more than most, so I don't have any regrets. The journey has taken me where it is I was drafted, do no choice of my own by the saints. And that led me to really do my life's work at desire street doing all the inner city, work and under-resourced neighborhoods that we do. So every step along the way was meant to be and I'm grateful for it.

Adam: That's an amazing perspective. And it really all is about perspective.

Adam: Since retiring from football, you've had more serious challenges. You lost your house in Hurricane Katrina and you were facing some serious health problems. You battled GPS. Those are real obstacles, obstacles far more serious than bouncing around different professional football teams. How did you overcome those struggles? And what advice do you have for listeners on how to navigate the challenges that they face in their lives and in their careers?

Danny: Yeah, well, you hit it right on the head, it's hard to consider yourself a backup or third-team quarterback and be suffering. It's a pretty good deal in the world to not be getting hit and to be on a team. So I really agree that you experience a lot in life, we all have good times and will have tough times. But really, I think it's the difficulties that are just the golden opportunities to be shaped. You just don't learn as much when you win a football game, you might try to shore up some mistakes. But boy, when you lose a couple of games, you start really honing in on why isn't this working. And I think that same is true in life. And so I've been through a lot of great things. And a lot of challenges. You know, Hurricane Katrina, we were living in New Orleans, we lost our house and everything that we owned. And yet at the same time, we were working with lots of families and kids in the Ninth Ward, which really got hit the hardest. And for a while, we thought the mayor was suspecting that maybe 10s of 1000s of people had died in the Ninth Ward. So we spent many days not knowing if the people we knew were alive or not, and we had lost all our stuff. But I had my wife and our son at the time. So it was like, I had everything I needed. And coming out of that experience, I realized what is all this stuff that we have when we clamor for and the things that we own, and how much of that really matters in the long run. What really matters in the long run? What am I investing in my life? And you go back into New Orleans and all the houses would be gutted and all the things were out packed on the road and piled up for the trash. And it was like, a few days earlier, that was somebody's treasure and now it's just a bunch of trash. And so like where am I investing my life that was a really difficult, challenging time to try to work with our organization through finding kids that had gotten dispersed all over the country. Fortunately, Adam at the end of the day, no one directly involved with us died in the storm. So I ended up grateful on that front but just talked about lives that were rocked by people like me who lost our house, went to someone else's house and we went and bought other clothes and we were fine. But a lot of the people, usually when there are pandemics or hurricanes or tornadoes, the people on the lower end of the world economically struggle the most. And so that was a really tough experience to go through. You also alluded to, what I have, called Gian Bray Syndrome. It's an autoimmune disorder, my antibodies started attacking my own nervous system and I got really sick and started to get paralyzed. I could barely move for several weeks and was kind of on one floor of the house for several months. And then after that, I was just tired, probably for another year, like just very low energy, which was really the probably most challenging part for me, wasn't the initial intense pain or paralysis, but it was ongoing. I thought I was better. But I didn't have energy. Back to our earlier conversation, Adam, I really, really had to say every day, like, what are two things that I'm going to do today? One really good thing for my family and one really good thing for work. And that's probably all I got in me. And ironically, I was pretty productive. Because I only focused on what really mattered. But going through that was very challenging. And those are the things I think that begin to shape me and my soul in a deeper way. You know, it's great to win a trophy. But those are moments you celebrate, it's the struggles that usually shape you.

Adam: Do you have any tips, takeaways, or advice, for anyone listening on how to handle the challenges that they face?

Danny: First of all, you don't have to bear it alone. The first thing is when you carry so much inside and you're not sharing it, even just sharing it verbally with someone, it makes it four times as heavy. So I made up that it's not like a study back. But the point is people listening right now, somebody's caring. If you just shared it with someone else, didn't even try to solve it, but just told someone how you're doing, that has tremendous power. Sometimes it's a friend, might be a pastor or a clergy person, it could be a counselor, we recommend and support a lot of folks and myself have gone through a lot of great counseling that's been very, very helpful for me. I think recognizing that sometimes we really do dumb things. And we invite our own suffering, and that's part of it. But other times there's just suffering that's part of being human on this planet. That just goes along with life and to recognize that it's coming and that it's normal, and then you're not some weird person, you know, social media makes everybody else look super happy. And why am I not happy? And that's the whole filter you're probably looking at that made them happy. And it's curated to be perfect. So I think just realizing you're not alone, going through it, I think is a very important thing. And for me, it really forced me to be still. And I made a commitment not to be distracted. And still, like at first I thought when I was paralyzed, I was going to just watch every Netflix show I'd never seen. But someone encouraged me not to waste the time. So I just remember sitting still and developed into a lifelong practice of meditation and a centering prayer contemplation, mindfulness, some call it but I mean, even this morning, I was 30 minutes on the porch, just sitting, letting go of my thoughts emptying myself. And those are some practices that grew out of the struggles that continue to shape me today.

Adam: Danny, we spoke a little bit about this pivot that you made retiring from the NFL, you were only 29 when you pivoted to your next career. A career that you've been thriving in ever since leading the world of nonprofits 20 years later. You're still leading the same nonprofit Desire Street Ministries. What advice do you have for anyone listening on when to pivot and how to pivot in their careers?

Danny: I was driving down the road one day from our house in New Orleans. And I had already started volunteering and was a big part of Desire Street. It was a local organization in the Ninth Ward on Desire Street, which is actually where it got its name out of a streetcar named Desire in New Orleans. So that's the street. So same street, just different parts of town. So I would go there a lot. But in the mornings, I would drive down the road and the one intersection I'd have to turn left if I was going to go to Desire Street and the other. I turn right because I was going each morning to train for football to get back on a team. And the easiest way to describe it for me was it got harder and harder for me to keep turning right. And I don't even really know how to describe it or why but I just really sensed that this is an opportunity to move towards something as opposed to just walking away or leaving something and being sad or upset about that it was an exciting move, a venture to move towards, I think that was important. When we're looking at pivots, we're looking at what's the opportunity. Where does my particular story and my skill set fit into that opportunity? Where's my passion and joy fit into that opportunity? I think it's important to consider what are the financial ramifications of a pivot, but I think too often, that's the main one, like, I'm gonna take this job because it pays more money. Well, there are a lot of other things to consider as well. And I have very consistently chosen not to make that a priority in my life, and 20 years later. I am just so grateful to be doing what I'm doing, we're very comfortable. Certainly, there are always times you can look around and see other people that did things differently, been nice to go cover football games and make 10 times more money as a broadcast analyst or something, but I don't think I'd be near as happy and near a sense of purpose as what I'm doing.

Adam: I love it. It's something that I share with audiences when you're trying to figure out what you want to do, you want to try to check three boxes. Number one, you want to try to find something that you love. Number two, you want to try to find something that you're great at. Number three, you want to try to find something that allows you to make a positive impact in the lives of others. And whatever that is, whether that's Desire Street Ministries, that could be being a color analyst, whatever that opportunity is, if you could check those three boxes, it could be both, there are so many different things that we can do. And we can do them at the same time. But it's about finding that. And if you find it, that's it, you can wake up first thing in the morning, you could go to bed late at night, you have no energy left, and you wake up the next morning fired up to do it again. It's all about being in that zone. I once said, Dan, if you played for a great college football program that did nothing but wins while you were there, and then you went to the NFL and played on some really bad teams. You saw both sides, you saw winning cultures, and you saw losing cultures. In your experience, what differentiates winning cultures from losing cultures? And what do you believe are the keys to building winning teams and building winning cultures? 

Danny: Well, my mind first goes to short-term versus long-term. Because I think there are many short-term hacks for life, for cultures, for things that are somewhat effective. In the short run, if I'm feeling really, really bad about something one night and decided to just drink a lot, I might actually feel better briefly. But it's going to be a lot worse later. There are cultures where leaders and football coaches can lead with a really heavy hand and fear that have won championships. But I think the turnover rate in those places is higher. And I think the longer term effects aren't as positive as some of the cultures that actually really try to build something, built on mutual respect, something built on like we talked about with a leader who's humble, with the leader who's drawing people in. I was on a team and a couple of different things happened. But man, there was a game where we had a coaching decision at the very end of the game. That should have cost us the game, there was a clock management issue with a coach incorrectly predicting how much time would be left if we kneel down. And we thought we were going to run the clock out. But after three kneel-downs, there were a few seconds left that we didn't know would be there. And the other team had a chance to kick a field goal. And when, fortunately, they missed but it was there was an uproar about how bad this coach was. And I found out a few days later, and no one knew that it was the quality control coach who was in charge that gave him bad information. And yet, no one ever heard that ever. I mean, I'd have been tempted on the microphone right after the game to be well, you know, we as a team, and this guy here it was just job. But this coach covered over the mistakes of his team and then celebrated and gave credit to them when things went well. And so those are the type of things that build a culture where you can try and fail.

Adam: Danny, well, can anyone listening to this conversation do to become more successful personally and professionally?

Danny: Sometimes it's as simple as getting more sleep. If you're sleeping less than seven hours a night that might be the first thing I'd say get more sleep, drink more water. Most people are very underhydrated. Most people aren't outside enough. Those are simple things but I think I would add because this has just been so powerful to me, if you can set aside five or 10 minutes, where you just sit and you don't even think, just count your breath, just pay attention to where you are, and don't let your mind wander. And when it wanders, remember to go back to counting your breath. I think Pascale or somebody said, all the wars in the world could have been avoided if men could have just learned to sit quietly for 30 minutes by themselves. So that would be maybe a unique thing that I would add this idea of learning what mindfulness is, this type of prayer or mindfulness. Where you're learning to quiet the overstimulated mind and heart and body, in this day and age that we live in and reconnect more with the simplicity of being human.

Adam: Danny, thank you for all the great advice, and thank you for being a part of Thirty Minute Mentors.

Danny: Thanks, Adam. Keep up the good work.


Adam Mendler is an entrepreneur, writer, speaker, educator, and nationally-recognized authority on leadership. Adam is the creator and host of the business and leadership podcast Thirty Minute Mentors, where he goes one on one with America's most successful people - Fortune 500 CEOs, founders of household name companies, Hall of Fame and Olympic gold medal-winning athletes, political and military leaders - for intimate half-hour conversations each week. A top leadership speaker, Adam draws upon his insights building and leading businesses and interviewing hundreds of America's top leaders as a top keynote speaker to businesses, universities, and non-profit organizations. Adam has written extensively on leadership and related topics, having authored over 70 articles published in major media outlets including Forbes, Inc. and HuffPost, and has conducted more than 500 one on one interviews with America’s top leaders through his collective media projects. Adam teaches graduate-level courses on leadership at UCLA and is an advisor to numerous companies and leaders. A Los Angeles native, Adam is a lifelong Angels fan and an avid backgammon player.

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