His back Gator great Danny Wuerffel Return official head coach of Gator dream come true…

His back Gator great Danny Wuerffel Return official head coach of Gator dream come true…

tackling the pro level again … this time it’s pickleball

Almost exactly 27 years after he went in Round 4 of the 1997 NFL Draft, Danny Wuerffel will again wait Sunday to see which team calls his name.

This time, the former Gator quarterback doesn’t have a Heisman Trophy, national championship or sterling stats to juice up his credentials — just four years of commitment, steady improvement and a love for his new game’s competitive opportunities.

That’s right, we have ourselves another pickleball conversion.

“I caught the bug, like a lot of people,” said Wuerffel, who turns 50 in May just as the National Pickleball League (for 50-and-over professionals) is serving up the start of its second season. The 12-team league’s draft is Sunday.

“I love to play, love to compete, and it just sorta developed,” he said by phone while on the road this week.

The NPL offers a team format instead of individual play, and isn’t yet an overly busy enterprise, with five tournaments scheduled through the summer (in Chicago, Columbus, Cincinnati, Kansas City and Houston). The league has expanded from six to 12 franchises this year, and two combines have been held in advance of this weekend’s draft.

Yes, you heard right, a pickleball combine.

A ball and paddle nothing new to Danny Wuerffel

Wuerffel’s love of racquet and paddle sports goes back to childhood in Fort Walton Beach, where football and basketball were his sporting devotions while tennis, racquetball and ping pong were his big hobbies.

“I always figured that eventually I’d play more tennis,” he said.

As it did with so many parts of life — big and small — Covid sent Wuerffel in another direction.

“I started playing with a friend who’s a big pickleball guy,” he said. “We met in Gainesville with some other friends who’d already been playing, and they were all ahead of me and were beating me. The competitive part of me said that’s not how this is supposed to work.

“Then Covid hit. My son Jonah and I, like a lot of people, were just trying to find anything we could do. Some people were playing on a tennis court in a park down from our house (in Atlanta). We went down a few times and somebody there invited us to another park, and we really fell in love with it.”

Before long, Wuerffel was incorporating pickleball tournaments into fundraising events put on by his Wuerffel Foundation — also, his long-standing Desire Street Ministries still gets much of his attention. He began competing in celebrity events here and there, including last spring at a Major League Pickleball event at Pictona in Holly Hill.

He’ll be playing next week in the Minto US Open Pickleball Championships at East Naples Community Park in Naples with more than 4,000 competitors.

“Pickleball, for me, really aligns well with my mission in life, the non-profit, the Wuerffel Foundation, with Desire Street,” he said. “I’ve met a lot of new people through pickleball that have helped the organizations. Hosted some celebrity pro-am events as fundraisers. I’m really enjoying the relationships I’ve made through the pickleball world.”

But to really scratch a competitive itch, Wuerffel needed to step into the next level — in pickleball, there’s always a “next level” out there.

Wuerffel doesn’t just pay as often as possible in Atlanta, but has added a variety of drills into his routine — serves, returns, volleys and the all-important dinking.

“You really can’t get too much better without doing some level of drilling,” he said, knowing the challenge ahead in a league where many players will be seasoned professionals.

“I’m hoping to be in the mix, to be able to compete,” he said. “When I put my mind to something, I usually figure out what I need to do to get better, and I have a good work ethic.”

Steve Spurrier’s ‘other quarterback’ is now a pickleball underdog

If Wuerffel as potential underdog — or perhaps even afterthought — in his new competitive world feels familiar, there’s a reason. Recalling the mid-’90s in Gainesville, Terry Dean was next in line, following Shane Matthews, to quarterback the Florida Gators. But as often happened during Steve Spurrier’s tenure, “the other guy” became the star quarterback.

Wuerffel was the other guy, and he’d quarterback the Gators to four straight SEC titles, as well as the 1996 national championship during his Heisman season. Now, though it might sound odd, he suggests his old quarterbacking skills transfer well to the pickleball court.

Danny Wuerffel and Steve Spurrier dominated the SEC in the mid-1990s.

“At a certain level, most people can make most of the shots,” he said. “Then it comes down to … and what I love about pickleball, it becomes more of a chess match. Who are you playing and what are their strengths and their weaknesses? Can you isolate them into more of their weaknesses?

“Playing quarterback, you are constantly weighing risk-reward in every situation — you’re constantly weighing ‘how risky should I be here instead of just moving the ball downfield?’ ”

Moving the ball downfield, in pickleball, often involves keeping a point going with dinking, which can become mind numbing to watch, until an opening arises.

“I think one of the best skills in being a quarterback is waiting until the very, very last second to commit to a decision,” Wuerffel said. “You can take in as much information as you can, process multiple things, don’t commit to anything. At the very last second, commit to something fully and don’t be tentative.

“It’s a unique way to develop your skill-set and I think it really translates well to pickleball. The longer you can wait to commit to what shot you’re gonna hit, and still hit a very effective shot … it’s a great skill.”

Well, it must be said. Wuerffel’s quarterbacking skills were much more effective at the amateur level than they were in the NFL, where he made just 10 starts over six seasons with four teams. No, this isn’t the Southeastern Conference and the NFL, but a step up in competition is still a step up in competition.

“I’ve been doing a lot of drilling, playing with a lot of different people at different levels,” he said. “I’m hoping to fit in well with the group, but we’ll see.”

— Reach Ken Willis at ken.willis@newls-jrnl.com