The Venice Vikings taught Damon Wilson II to be a dominant football player. Giving back to them has been another kind of lesson for the new Missouri defensive end: one in what he can be as a modern, paid college football player.
Wilson has donated some of his NIL earnings to the Pop Warner organization that gave him his first chance to play the game. It’s a full-circle development, sort of, but also a symbol of Wilson’s linear growth into the power, the possibility of his newfound platform.
“We knew that he was going to be somebody,” said Jamie Fraser, the president of the Vikings, who play in the Florida Gulf Coast city of Venice. That’s how much talent Wilson, who was a five-star recruit and top-ranked edge rusher when he transferred to Mizzou this offseason from Georgia, possessed.
But that somebody has evolved recently.
This summer, Wilson made significant donations to both the Vikings and the Venice High School football programs, sending back some of his NIL earnings to help out athletes in his hometown. He matched donations to the Vikings during a fundraising drive that brought in more than $6,000, Fraser said.
In total, Wilson has donated more than $10,000 to his former programs. Why?
“I played more football there than anywhere else in my life,” Wilson told the Post-Dispatch, sitting in front of his new locker inside the Mizzou team facility.
Damon Wilson II runs with a ball while playing for the Venice Vikings, a Pop Warner youth football program. Wilson, now a defensive end at Missouri, has donated some of his NIL earnings back to the Vikings.
And on one level, that’s true. Yet there’s something deeper to the way one of MU’s most-anticipated newcomers thinks about his platform.
In an age where Southeastern Conference football players are compensated through NIL and revenue-share payments, Wilson has become more conscious of what players do with the money they’re now receiving. More precisely, what kind of good they can do with it.
“NIL is not going anywhere,” he said. “It’s probably gonna be here forever. Just starting a cycle of athletes who come back and give back to their community and to their local Pop Warner or youth football team, because we were all kids at one point who played football. That’s just what we’re meant to do.”
Wilson’s donation will go to a handful of different places within the Venice Vikings, Fraser said. It’ll go toward scholarships for players whose families can’t afford registration fees. It’ll buy new helmets, shoulder pads and equipment for newly added age levels.
The Vikings are a nonprofit, so besides registration fees, donations are their only other source of funding.
“Money goes a long way, especially in Pop Warner-level football,” Wilson said, “just because that amount of money could buy a whole team pads or a whole team helmets. I just thought they were going to be able to do a lot with that money.”
Since he left the Vikings’ ranks to play high school and then college football, Wilson has still visited his old Pop Warner club. He’ll play around with the kids, help out with some drills and represent the kind of star they want to become.
That’s fairly common for youth football teams. Donating NIL money is something different.
“We haven’t gotten a lot of that in years past,” Fraser said. “We’ve had plenty of people that have come through our program that have gone on and played college (football), but most of them, when they come back, they just give back with their time — not necessarily with money. He’s one of the first, and it’s definitely a lifesaver.”
Missouri defensive end Damon Wilson II lines up as he participates in a training drill during practice on Tuesday, March 11, 2025, at the Mizzou Athletics Training Complex in Columbia.
Wilson hopes his donation serves as an example for other college athletes. Maybe in a time when the external view of college sports is tainted by cynicism around the transfer portal, rising spending and endless rule changes, this is a way to find a tangible positive.
“I just hope they’re able to see what I can do,” Wilson said. “Not everybody has the ability (to donate NIL earnings) because other people might be trying to take care of their family or other situations like that. Some people aren’t in the position to donate a large amount. But if they are, I feel like a lot of people in college football are kind of trending towards that and trying to better their own communities. That’s one thing that a lot of college football teams talk about: giving back to your community instead of just taking, taking, taking, taking all the time.”
Hearing Wilson talk like that is reminiscent of another philanthropic pass rusher to have come through Mizzou recently. Darius Robinson, who played for the Tigers from 2019-2023 before being drafted by the Arizona Cardinals, was similarly minded. He held a school supply giveaway at a Columbia church, funneling some of his NIL earnings back into his adopted hometown.
Transferring in over the winter, Wilson’s never worked with Robinson, though he has heard about his legacy around MU. And really, for Wilson, giving back is part of a more profound shift he’s experienced toward finding fulfillment outside of football.
The sport he plays has taken up a lot of his time and energy, but he’s finding more bandwidth for other endeavors. Wilson is launching a fitness app geared toward college students. He wants to help other athletes with developing their personal brands in the NIL world. He sees more to being a college football player than putting on pads and a jersey.
But did he always view it that way?
“I think of it like little chapters,” Wilson said. “First, you try to get your foot in the door, get a couple offers and you go to college. Then you’ve got to put your head back down again (and) grind. So in the beginning, no, I wasn’t really thinking about that. My whole goal was just to get in a position where I can showcase my skills. Once you realize you can do what you do typically and you can also add more on to what you usually do, that’s when I started realizing: I can be more for the community rather than just focus on myself.”
Missouri football coach Eli Drinkwitz speaks with the media on Thursday, July 17, 2025, during SEC media days in Atlanta. (Courtesy Southeastern Conference)
