Brad Culpepper
John Broward "Brad" Culpepper (born May 8, 1969) is an American former professional football player who was a defensive tackle in the National Football League (NFL) for nine seasons during the 1990s and early 2000s. Culpepper was as an All-American when he played college football for the Florida Gators. Selected late in the tenth round of the 1992 NFL Draft, he became a consistent starter for the Minnesota Vikings, Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and Chicago Bears. Culpepper is also known for appearing on two seasons of the U.S. reality television show Survivor, appearing on Survivor: Blood vs. Water and Survivor: Game Changers. Early life Culpepper was born in Tallahassee, Florida in 1969. He attended Leon High School in Tallahassee, where he was a standout prep player for the Leon Lions high school football team. Culpepper was born into a family of University of Florida alumni. His father, Bruce Culpepper, was a center for the Gators football team from 1960 to 1962 and co-captain of their 1962 Gator Bowl team, and became a prominent Tallahassee attorney. His uncle, Blair Culpepper, was a Gators fullback in 1957 and 1958, and became a bank president in Winter Park, Florida. His grandfather, J. Broward Culpepper, was also a Florida graduate and served as the chancellor of the State University System of Florida. College career Culpepper accepted an athletic scholarship to attend the University of Florida in Gainesville, Florida, where he played for coach Galen Hall and coach Steve Spurrier's Gators teams from 1988 to 1991. During his senior season in 1991, Culpepper was a standout defensive tackle and team captain on the Gators' Southeastern Conference (SEC) championship team, a first-team All-SEC selection and a consensus first-team All-American. He finished his college career with eighteen quarterback sacks and 47.5 tackles for a loss. He was also named to the SEC Academic Honor Roll all four years, was a first-team Academic All-American, and received the Draddy Trophy recognizing him as college football's most outstanding student-athlete. While Culpepper was a Florida undergraduate, he was also an active member of Sigma Chi Fraternity (Gamma Theta Chapter). Culpepper graduated from Florida with his bachelor's degree in history after his junior year, and enrolled in a master's degree program in exercise and sports sciences during his senior football season. After finishing his professional playing career, Culpepper returned to graduate school and law school full-time, and earned his master's degree and J.D. degree from Florida in 2001. He was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as a "Gator Great" in 2001. The sports editors of The Gainesville Sun ranked him as the No. 47 all-time greatest player of the first 100 seasons of the Florida Gators football team in 2006. Professional career Culpepper was a tenth round selection (264th overall pick) in the 1992 NFL Draft by the Minnesota Vikings, and he played for the Vikings from to , the Tampa Bay Buccaneers from to , and the Chicago Bears in . In his nine-year professional career, Culpepper