Life Advice for Youth Resurfaces for a Jet

Heather Ainsworth for The New York Times

Linebacker Danny Lansanah, right, at camp. Lansanah, who advised teenagers to rise above adversity, has been doing the same as he vies for a position on the Jets.

By TOM PEDULLA

FLORHAM PARK, N.J. — When Danny Lansanah counseled teenagers at Alternative Rehabilitation Communities in his hometown, Harrisburg, Pa., he urged them to follow their dreams no matter how much adversity they encountered, no matter how high the odds seemed stacked against them.

Now, after failed attempts to stick with the Green Bay Packers, the Miami Dolphins and the Detroit Lions, and after three years away from the N.F.L., he finds himself needing to heed his own counsel as he bids to make the Jets’ roster as a linebacker and a special-teams player.