Staying Power : Daunte Culpepper May Be the Best Player You’ve Never Heard Of, but by Returning to Central Florida for His Senior Season, He May Change That

Emma Culpepper was 62, ready to retire, frankly ready to take a load off after decades of raising other mothers’ kids.

The last thing she needed was another child.

But on Jan. 28, 1977, an inmate at the Ocala, Fla., correctional facility where Culpepper worked gave birth to a boy.

Daunte was the name of the child, conceived during a prison visit by the mother’s boyfriend.

The new mom begged Emma to take the baby and raise him as her own.

Emma was certainly qualified, having raised 14 kids, none her own. Emma bore no children with her husband, who died in 1956. But she raised her deceased brother’s four kids, seven others by her sister-in-law and three more she adopted.

Emma considered the 2 a.m. feedings and the diaper changes and, naturally she said yes, taking Daunte in her arms on Jan. 29.

“The mother asked me to take him and I did,” 83-year-old Emma says on the phone from her home in Ocala. “I just took him and trusted God. So far, so good.”

Yes, so far, so good.

The boy Emma raised has grown up to become the best pro quarterback prospect in the country, a Heisman Trophy candidate, possibly the first pick of next year’s NFL draft and the improbable star of the Central Florida Golden Knights, heretofore an obscure football program lost in the Orlando morass of golf courses and amusement parks.

Daunte Culpepper may not be a household name yet, but it’s safe to say he has pulled into America’s driveway.

They know him in Nebraska, where last year as a junior Culpepper nearly scared the husks off the corn in Lincoln. Forty-point underdog Central Florida led Nebraska, 17-14, at the half before losing by two touchdowns.

Culpepper passed for 318 yards and a touchdown and earned a standing ovation at game’s end from Cornhusker fans.

They know Culpepper in NFL war rooms, where scouts are processing the raw data: 6 feet 4, 235 pounds, 4.6 time in 40-yard dash, 36-inch vertical leap. Culpepper can throw a football 80 yards and last spring won a team strength contest with a lift of 330 pounds in the clean press.

They know him at the universities of Florida and Florida State, two college football superpowers that could not cull the most heralded quarterback in state history because of the staunch loyalty Culpepper culled from his mother, Emma.

Loyalty is the reason Culpepper is not slingin’ bullets for Steve Spurrier or Bobby Bowden; loyalty is the reason he turned down first-round money to finish the job he started at Central Florida.

After all, had Emma gone with the conventional wisdom, where might Daunte have ended up?

“Sometimes you just have to take chances,” Daunte says, a phrase Emma might have uttered 21 years ago in that Ocala prison maternity ward.

Trying to Pass Muster

The first scene of a TV movie-of-the-week about Culpepper might zoom into a 1990 city league football practice in Ocala, about a 90-minute drive northwest of Orlando.

One day, a 13-year-old receiver named Culpepper went out for a pass.

“The quarterback overthrew me by about 10 yards, and the ball rolled about another 25,” Culpepper says during a training camp interview in the Central Florida sports information office. “I picked the ball up and I slung it all the way back to the quarterback. Ever since then I’ve been a quarterback.”

Culpepper was a multi-sport star at Vanguard High. The New York Yankees drafted him as a pitcher.

Central Florida offensive coordinator Paul Lounsberry saw Culpepper play a football game and rushed back a glowing report to his superiors.

“I said this is the best quarterback I’ve ever seen in 25 years of coaching,” Lounsberry recalls. “They said, ‘Yeah, if he is, we can’t get him.’ ”

True enough. Florida and Florida State were hot on the Culpepper case, but recruiters from both schools ran screaming out of Ocala after they saw Daunte’s 1.5 grade-point average.

Lounsberry, though, didn’t give up. He went to the principal’s office and inspected the transcripts. Culpepper wasn’t dumb, he discovered, he was lazy. He devised a plan to get Culpepper eligible by his senior season.

“I knew if there was a chance, I was going to do it,” Culpepper says. “All I needed was a possibility.”

Culpepper traded in his social life for a batch of homework. He studied before school and after, knowing he needed four Bs and two A’s his last semester to give him the 2.0 GPA necessary for college admission.

“I got like a 2.00000001,” Culpepper says, laughing.

When it appeared Culpepper was going to make it after all, Florida made a strong second pass at him.

Too late.

“UCF gave me a plan to get eligible and I took that to heart,” Culpepper explains. “If they were going to make that much effort to get me, I knew I’d be in good hands. I felt I could repay them.”

Culpepper has made the dean’s list the last two semesters at UCF with a 3.0 GPA. He is on course to graduate with a degree in secondary education.

“He kept saying he was coming to UCF and I kept saying, ‘This can’t be true,’ ” Lounsberry says.

It was.

Should He Stay or Go?

Culpepper faced another tough decision last spring. After passing for 3,086 yards and 25 touchdowns in 1997, he could have entered the NFL draft and, by most estimates, been a late first-round draft choice.

The timing seemed right.

Central Florida was awash in turmoil. Coach Gene McDowell had been forced to resign because of a cellular phone scandal involving several players. McDowell pleaded guilty to obstruction charges and was sentenced to house arrest.

No one would have blamed Culpepper had he turned pro. He had always promised to build Emma a new house in Ocala and here was the perfect chance to take the money and pass.

But again, bucking conventional wisdom, Culpepper announced he was coming back for his senior season.

“He could have jumped ship when he committed,” interim Coach Mike Kruczek says. “And he could have jumped last year.”

But there were reasons to stay on board.

Central Florida returns 10 starters from a 5-6 squad that played one of the most ambitious schedules in the country--at Nebraska, at Mississippi, at South Carolina, at Auburn.

The schedule this year is palatable enough to think the independent Golden Knights might have a decent shot at qualifying for a bowl.

Also, with one more season of fine tuning, Culpepper figures he can radically improve his NFL draft position.

“He understands the difference between first, second or third in the first round and 27th or 28th money-wise,” says Kruczek, who was Terry Bradshaw’s backup on the Pittsburgh Steelers from 1976 to ’79. “Why not be the top dog coming out next year?”

Culpepper had other reasons to stay.

First, he promised Emma he would graduate.

“He knows football, he knows basketball, he knows all kinds of balls,” Emma says. “But he’s got to get something in his head. That piece of paper [diploma] is important to him and money don’t mean everything to me.”

Culpepper also said he didn’t want to leave Central Florida in the wake of scandal.

“Maybe if I would have left, it would have set this program back,” Culpepper says. “I don’t know, maybe I’m wrong, but I think sometimes you can’t be selfish in a situation.”

Culpepper was allowed to take out a $5 million insurance policy through the NCAA, based on his projected position in next year’s NFL draft. The premium for the policy does not come due until after Culpepper signs.

In the end, Culpepper did not want to leave Central Florida; he wanted to leave a legacy.

“I want to be able to look back, 10, 15, 20 years from now and say, ‘Hey, I was one of the pioneers that helped to get that program started,’ ” Culpepper says of Central Florida, entering its third season at Division I in football. “I just want to be able to say I’m proud of UCF and did my best to help get them on the map nationally.”

Emma and the House

Daunte has considered life without Emma.

“I have,” Culpepper says, “And I can honestly tell you I don’t know where I’d be. I’d probably have ended up in a foster home, something like that. I thank God for her.”

Emma has lived in the same one-story, white stucco house for 40 years. She has worked as a beautician and as a housemother at the correctional facility. She has picked beans. She raised children who went on to become butchers, secretaries, nurses and school teachers.

She ran a tough house. She treated the neighborhood kids the same as she would her own.

“We were poor growing up,” Culpepper says, “but there wasn’t one night we didn’t have food on the table or one day that I went to school that I didn’t have nice clothes to wear. I was always happy.”

Daunte has maintained a relationship with his biological mother, who lives in Miami.

“She was just a young kid at the time, I don’t blame her for what happened,” he says.

Daunte has never known his father.

“Maybe my dad is 6-6 and 225 pounds and can throw the ball 60 yards,” he says. “I don’t know.”

Culpepper can’t imagine letting his dad back in his life.

“I don’t really need a dad because I had such good upbringing from my mom,” he says. “She was always there. She was retired my whole life, so after school she was always there.”

When he gets his NFL money, Culpepper plans to build Emma a new house on the existing lot, although she insists that the old house not be destroyed.

Too many memories.

“She taught me the do’s and don’ts of life,” Culpepper says. “I love her to death and would do anything for her.”

Emma says Daunte can do what he pleases.

“He wants to do something nice for me,” she says. “He figures he’ll build me a mansion. But I’d be happy in this old house.”

There will be important decisions to make, none easier than the one Emma made 21 years ago regarding a baby named Duante.

“I never regretted one day that I took him,” Emma says.

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Sudden Impact

A look at Daunte Culpepper’s statistics in his breakout junior season in 1997:

Attempts: 381

Completions: 238

Percentage: 62.5

Yards: 3,086

Touchdowns: 25

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SCOUT’S HONOR: R. Jay Soward earned the praise of first-year Coach Paul Hackett. C7

COMING THURSDAY: A 16-page special section previewing the college and pro seasons.