Darren Woodson
A three-time Super Bowl champion and five-time Pro Bowl selection, Darren Woodson is often recognized as one of the greatest players to wear a Dallas Cowboys uniform.
Darren Woodson's videos
What Darren Woodson's clients say
"Darren was absolutely amazing. Not only is he a wonderful and super nice person, he knows how to get a crowd fired up! His message is very clear and he puts ownership on the audience to get to work. We loved him!"
"We had a wonderful event. I had many comments that Darren’s speech was right on the mark, and they’re already asking when he can come back. Thank you!"
"For 13 years, Woodson was everything you could ask for — unselfish, reliable, dependable, a team player first and a team leader always. He’s a living, breathing example of the saying that character does matter."
"Darren really hit home the message of cultural differences between mediocre teams and winning teams. He truly left the room compelled to do more, give more, be more. Thank you, Darren, for an excellent keynote last night. The standing ovation was extremely deserved!"
"Darren, thank you for adding tremendous value to the BIOTRONIK 2019 kick-off meetings. Your message was clear and on point for our organization and very well received. The energy, passion and confidence you brought to the stage resonated with the team and served as a nice platform to launch our year. Congratulations on your continued success and thanks again for sharing your message with us."
"Darren was terrific. In fact, I just received a phone call from a senior executive telling me that Darren was one of the best speakers he had ever heard. He brought energy, empathy, humor and insight to all, even those without a love of the game (or the Cowboys!). He engaged in a friendly banter with our leader, agreed to throw footballs into the audience, recognized one of our employees for her work with Diversity & Inclusion, and stayed after making sure he got to every last person waiting for a photo, autograph and wanting to tell their story. He even did a video for someone who requested it!"
"Simply amazing. Fantastic speech – he tailored it to us and included information about his background. He was so easy to work with. He took lots of questions from the audience and stuck around for a LONG line of admiring fans for autographs and photos."
"Darren Woodson had a great message to share with our executive partners. He was perfect, and he was polished. It was a message that has seeped so much into the fiber of our team that our executives continue referring to Darren’s fundamentals long after the event."
"He was an awesome speaker with a great message."
"Darren delivered an outstanding and enthusiastic presentation to kick off our company meeting. I have had the unique opportunity to see Darren speak in person and virtually. I can say without a doubt that his energy, his thought provoking message, and his inspiring personal experiences are consistently delivered no matter the platform. Darren is dynamic in his presentation style and the feedback we received from Darren’s presentation was consistently excellent. Thank you, Darren."
"Darren, it was truly a pleasure and great fun to meet you and I would like to express my sincere gratitude and thankfulness for you joining us in Pittsburgh. It is not an exaggeration here if I say that your presentation was a highlight of our QBR and the points that you made were impactful, valuable and aligned with the ‘real world’ which was refreshing. It is indeed difficult to ‘manage emotions’ while still holding onto the fact that we care so much about what we do for our clients, the patients they serve and for ourselves. Your words were motivating to our entire team. I hope that we are able to have you and your gorgeous rings back again. Thank you."
"He was fantastic, so much fun, and absolutely over delivered. Our attendees loved his stories and everything he shared."
"Darren, it was such a privilege to have you join our team meeting in Pittsburgh last week. The guiding principles of turning the negative chatter positive, taking ownership, and embracing change were so timely for us. The passion and conviction in your speech to our team was palpable. The feedback from the team was off the charts positive. I loved how you took the time to meet individually with so many of our team members at Top Golf on Wednesday night, and then incorporated what you heard into the discussion the next day. To get to introduce you to the team on Thursday morning was surreal, as I have always been such a big fan of yours and now I can easily say that I’m a bigger fan of you as a man and a leader."
"Darren was the perfect closing Keynote Speaker for our company’s Leading the Way Sales Conference. His high energy, personal stories, and compelling message perfectly illustrated the importance of leadership and personal responsibility in every aspect of life. Darren creatively used humor and audience participation to keep attendees engaged. This was reinforced in the event follow up survey where he received the highest scores and was recognized as the highlight of the conference."
"Darren covered what it takes to succeed, on and off the field. He gave a passionate talk about pushing yourself to be more than just content. Our attendees are entrepreneurs at heart, like Darren, and understand the need to push themselves to excel."
"We experienced Darren ‘in action’ at the FAM TPO Sales Rally in San Antonio. We loved that he challenges his audience to be compelled and can speak about competing at the highest levels."
"I can tell you from the chat comments that everyone loved Darren's session. Please let him and his team know we were very pleased. We had 7000+ people in this session!!! Total success!!!"
"I wanted to pass along my thanks to you for working with us on Darren’s talk for IBM Americas. We had our sales enablement event last week and we had overwhelmingly positive comments and feedback on Darren’s stories and experiences that he shared. His messaging aligned very well to our overall Sales Enablement theme of Winning! Would you please pass along IBM’s sincere thanks to Darren and the rest of his team. We really do appreciate that he was willing to re-record the session. I would like him to know that his energy, passion and messaging was right on point, and that our teams and leaders very much enjoyed his talk. Our General Manager referred to Darren’s comments and his 4 C’s several times throughout our event."
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Languages:
- English
Darren Woodson's 2024 biography
About Darren Woodson
A native of Phoenix, Woodson played football at Maryvale High School as a running back and linebacker. He attended Arizona State University, where he was a converted linebacker for the Sun Devils and earned his Bachelor of Science in Justice Studies.
In the 1992 NFL Draft, the Dallas Cowboys selected Woodson in the second-round (37th overall). Throughout his 12 seasons (1992-2004) with the Cowboys, he earned a reputation as one of the hardest hitters and most ferocious safeties in the NFL.
Woodson retired in 2004 as the Cowboys’ All-Time Leading Tackler with 1,350 career stops and registering career totals of 11 sacks and 23 interceptions. Throughout his NFL career, his dependability, athleticism and aggressiveness helped lead the Cowboys to three Super Bowl Championships (Super Bowl XXVII, XXVIII and XXX) – securing him an elite position in the club’s history. In 2015, Woodson was inducted into the prestigious Cowboys “Ring of Honor.” He was also named to the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame (2009) and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame (2017).
Upon retiring from the NFL, Woodson joined ESPN as an NFL analyst in 2005. He appeared on “NFL Live” and “SportsCenter” and also participated on the network’s coverage o
f the Super Bowl, NFL Draft and NFL training camp specials. After 14 years with the network and commuting weekly to Bristol, Connecticut, Woodson announced his retirement in 2019.
Transitioning from the NFL to a post-playing career is not easy for most athletes—but Woodson has found consistent success. Woodson joined ESRP Advisory Dallas, LLC, “esrp”, in 2017 and bridged his storied football career and entrepreneurial spirit with commercial real estate. In May of 2022, esrp merged with Cresa, the world’s only global commercial real estate advisory firm that exclusively represents occupiers and specializes in the delivery of fully integrated real estate solutions operating from over 380 offices in 15 territories.
Woodson offices at the Dallas Cowboy World Headquarters – The Star, Cresa’s primary office in the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a Managing Principal and is an active Board member where he is directly involved with the firm’s overall vision, growth, and strategy. Woodson focuses on locating, developing, and defining business relationships across a variety of industries and markets. He brings his innate leadership skills and passion for creating winning strategies to meet clients’ real estate needs, while delivering a high-level of service. Clients include NTT DATA, Argo Data, ExamSoft and MTX Group.
Beyond his remarkable talents and dedicated leadership, Woodson has made significant contributions to his community and is an active board member at C5 Youth Foundation of Texas. C5 Youth Foundation helps high potential youth with limited resources become successful and responsible leaders in their communities. Since its inception, over 600 Texas youth have experienced C5 Texas’ life-changing program and leadership experiences.
Darren is married to Tiffany and has four beautiful children.
About Darren Woodson
A native of Phoenix, Woodson played football at Maryvale High School as a running back and linebacker. He attended Arizona State University, where he was a converted linebacker for the Sun Devils and earned his Bachelor of Science in Justice Studies.
In the 1992 NFL Draft, the Dallas Cowboys selected Woodson in the second-round (37th overall). Throughout his 12 seasons (1992-2004) with the Cowboys, he earned a reputation as one of the hardest hitters and most ferocious safeties in the NFL.
Woodson retired in 2004 as the Cowboys’ All-Time Leading Tackler with 1,350 career stops and registering career totals of 11 sacks and 23 interceptions. Throughout his NFL career, his dependability, athleticism and aggressiveness helped lead the Cowboys to three Super Bowl Championships (Super Bowl XXVII, XXVIII and XXX) – securing him an elite position in the club’s history. In 2015, Woodson was inducted into the prestigious Cowboys “Ring of Honor.” He was also named to the Arizona Sports Hall of Fame (2009) and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame (2017).
Upon retiring from the NFL, Woodson joined ESPN as an NFL analyst in 2005. He appeared on “NFL Live” and “SportsCenter” and also participated on the network’s coverage o
f the Super Bowl, NFL Draft and NFL training camp specials. After 14 years with the network and commuting weekly to Bristol, Connecticut, Woodson announced his retirement in 2019.
Transitioning from the NFL to a post-playing career is not easy for most athletes—but Woodson has found consistent success. Woodson joined ESRP Advisory Dallas, LLC, “esrp”, in 2017 and bridged his storied football career and entrepreneurial spirit with commercial real estate. In May of 2022, esrp merged with Cresa, the world’s only global commercial real estate advisory firm that exclusively represents occupiers and specializes in the delivery of fully integrated real estate solutions operating from over 380 offices in 15 territories.
Woodson offices at the Dallas Cowboy World Headquarters – The Star, Cresa’s primary office in the Dallas-Fort Worth region as a Managing Principal and is an active Board member where he is directly involved with the firm’s overall vision, growth, and strategy. Woodson focuses on locating, developing, and defining business relationships across a variety of industries and markets. He brings his innate leadership skills and passion for creating winning strategies to meet clients’ real estate needs, while delivering a high-level of service. Clients include NTT DATA, Argo Data, ExamSoft and MTX Group.
Beyond his remarkable talents and dedicated leadership, Woodson has made significant contributions to his community and is an active board member at C5 Youth Foundation of Texas. C5 Youth Foundation helps high potential youth with limited resources become successful and responsible leaders in their communities. Since its inception, over 600 Texas youth have experienced C5 Texas’ life-changing program and leadership experiences.
Darren is married to Tiffany and has four beautiful children.
Darren Woodson's 2024 talks & topics
CREATING CULTURES OF EXCELLENCE
Darren coaches others how to tackle the challenges of leadership, build a winning team, and compete to be the best. He inspires organizations to move beyond the mediocre and to create cultures of excellence by leaving them with the motivation to be a compelling leader. In Real Estate spaces, he brings his current knowledge and investment of the subject and speaks directly to the challenges you may be facing. Especially in the, “New Normal.”
What are the cultural differences between mediocre teams and winning teams, whether they are in sports or business? In this speech, Darren Woodson (5 time Pro Bowl safety and 3 time NFL Super Bowl Champion with the Dallas Cowboys) describes what leaders must embrace in order to build a culture of excellence with their teams. Learn how to embrace change, competition, and confrontation within your organization.
Cultures of excellence embrace:
(hard) change
(honest) confrontation
(healthy) competition
and… individuals with (heartfelt) character
Darren Woodson's 2024 speaking fees
- United States
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