Daunte Culpepper

1977-

Also known as Daunte Henderson

African-American sportsman

Culpepper was born to an unmarried teenager in jail for armed robbery (she is now a qualified social worker, with five other children, and they have always been in contact, although he has no interest in meeting his biological father). She gave him to one of the housemothers of the jail, a widow of 62 who had already raised 14 foster children from her own family, when he was a day old. After she was released from jail she claimed Daunte, by now four or five years old back, but he was so unhappy that she returned him to Mrs. Culpepper, whose name he later took.

He became a football and basketball star in high school, but his grades were very poor and he had special help to raise them to the point where he could enter the University of Central Florida, where he continued his remarkable football success.

References

"Daunte Culpepper, Biography." [Includes portrait]. Available at: [1] Lowitt, Bruce. "Emma Culpepper Raised a Good Man." [Includes portrait]. St. Petersburg Times, 30 September 1998. Also available at: [2] Shipley, Amy. "Emma Culpepper, 83, Has Son with Football Future." Washington Post, 13 August 1998. Also available at: [3] "Mama's Own." Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune, Sports section, Metro edition, 26 April 1999, p. 01C. Also available at: [4]