The best of the NFL, both caught and taught, was evident at the 20th Annual Super Bowl Breakfast, where Tampa Bay running back Warrick Dunn was honored as the 2009 Bart Starr Award recipient.
NFL Hall of Fame quarterback Bart Starr presents the Bart Starr Award to Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Warrick Dunn at the Super Bowl Breakfast Jan. 31.The Jan. 31 pre-Super Bowl event, which showcased the character and faith of many former and current players and coaches, is sponsored by Athletes in Action and sanctioned by the NFL.
Starr, the award’s namesake, told a record crowd of 6,000 people at the University of South Florida’s Sun Dome in Tampa that “we hear too much” about players who bring disrepute to the NFL. Instead, said Starr, a Hall of Fame quarterback for the Green Bay Packers, “we need to hear more about the good ones.”
Dunn, a 12-year NFL veteran, was honored for his work with single-parent families. Since 1997, the Warrick Dunn Foundation, through its Homes for the Holidays program, has provided 84 homes for single parents in Florida, Georgia and his home state of Louisiana.
The program not only provides the down payment for the homes to qualified parents but also furnishes everything a first-time homeowner would need, from food to linens to furniture.
Dunn said it was his late mother’s goal to own a home, and he wants to help others less fortunate in the same way.
“I have learned that God is first and foremost,” Dunn said, “and I’m thankful that my mom instilled in me that this life is not just about myself.”
Dunn, who started his career with the Buccaneers and returned this year after six seasons with the Atlanta Falcons, said he began to undergo a radical change after rededicating his life to Christ in 2005 and, late last year, taking a step he never thought he would. He went to Louisiana’s Angola State Prison to visit the person who was convicted of killing his mother, an off-duty security officer, in a 1993 botched robbery. “I told him, ‘I forgive you.’ I was so at peace after being so depressed for so long. God has become the most important thing in my life. When I recommitted my life to Christ, my relationship totally changed. I had a tragedy, but so many blessings along the way.”
Also honored at the breakfast was high school coach Kris Hogan from the Dallas-area Faith Christian School, who organized his fans and players to reach out to a team from Gainesville State School, a criminal juvenile institution, that Faith played against last November.
A number of Faith Christian fans sat behind the Gainesville bench and cheered for the team, then prayed for them after the game and sent them back to the school with a sack dinner and a Bible.
“Our worldview is Christian and we live outside the box. We want to love our neighbors as ourselves,” Hogan said.