By Staff Sgt. Christopher Gross, Air Force News Service /
Published February 03, 2016
FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (AFNS) -- Super Bowl 50 is just
days away and it’s hard not to wonder how one of the U.S. Air Force Academy’s
best all-time players fits into that history.
Chad Hennings won three Super Bowls with the Dallas Cowboys
during the 1990s, and his first appearance was within a year’s time of flying
his A-10 Thunderbolt II in a combat sortie in northern Iraq.
Hennings, a 1988 Academy graduate, led the nation with 24
sacks and was awarded the Outland Trophy during the 1987 season -- an award
that recognizes the nation’s best interior lineman.
Committed to serve
Following graduation, Hennings -- now a member of the
College Football Hall of Fame -- was drafted by the Cowboys in the 11th round
of the 1988 draft. Before he could even suit up in the NFL, Hennings had to
first fulfill his military commitment, a move that was initially hard to
accept.
“I wouldn’t say there were regrets, (but) it was an
emotional struggle because I wanted to be able to compete,” Hennings said.
From a character perspective, he knew without a doubt what
he needed to do because he made a commitment and he was going to stick to it.
The drive to compete, however, made his transition from school to pilot
training and then into his active-duty squadron a difficult one. That void
would eventually be filled with friendly competition as an A-10 pilot.
“We did compete on the range; we competed for performance,”
he said. “There (was) always competition and it was a healthy competition.”
After pilot school, Hennings was stationed in the U.K. and
deployed twice to Incirlik Air Base, Turkey, in 1991 and 1992. While deployed,
he flew 45 combat sorties in northern Iraq in support of Operation Provide
Comfort, an international relief effort after the Gulf War.
After getting settled into the Air Force, Hennings said he
contemplated making a career out of it.
“Football was a distant memory and something in the past
that I never really thought about until the Air Force went through the
reduction in force and they started the waivers in the spring of ‘92,” he said.
Pro player
Hennings separated from active-duty Air Force in April 1992
and transitioned to the Air Force Reserve. He continued to serve in the Reserve
individual mobilization augmentee program for almost 10 years.
The next month, Hennings found himself in Dallas working out
for the Cowboys.
“It was extremely stressful, initially transitioning in ‘92,
because I’m leaving one career for another,” he said. “I’m moving from one
continent to another, taking on a whole new different position. There were a
lot of just stress factors there, and it wasn’t assured that I would make the team.”
Hennings said it was tough coming into the league and
competing at a level of competition that was much higher than he experienced
before.
But all the downtime spent in the weight room and working
out when he wasn’t flying during his deployments and TDYs paid off. He would go
on to secure a spot on the team, and kick off what would eventually be a
nine-year career with the Cowboys, playing in 119 games and recording 27.5
sacks.
In his first season, Hennings and the Cowboys would go on to
beat the Buffalo Bills in Super Bowl 27.
“It was pretty surreal,” he said. “I essentially flew a
combat mission and then played in the Super Bowl all within a year’s time.”
He compared that Super Bowl experience to his first combat
mission. He said he knew he had a job to do, and being around a set of guys who
were experienced made it easier to navigate and process all of his emotions.
During his next three seasons, Hennings would go onto win
two more Super Bowls with the Cowboys.
“You got to a point in our culture of being a Dallas Cowboy,
that that’s what was expected. We knew we were the best team out there,”
Hennings said. “I kind of compare that analogy to being a
fighter pilot. It’s kind of that confident arrogance, where you know you’re
good, you know your abilities; you walk out there, you don’t flaunt it, but you
walk with an extreme amount of confidence.”
It wasn’t until the latter part of Hennings’ career that he
fully appreciated winning three Super Bowls, he said.
Two decades after he appeared in his last Super Bowl,
beating the Pittsburgh Steelers in Super Bowl 30, Hennings has a sincere
admiration for those moments in time and truly appreciates how special those
teams really were.
“As a kid growing up, all your heroes, the role models that
you looked up to on the gridiron -- you know those guys -- they were able to
hold that trophy up,” Hennings said. “I was a Minnesota Vikings fan, so they
went there four years and they never won one, and that’s where I realized too
how difficult it is, not only to just get to the Super Bowl, but to win one --
how truly special that is.”
Hennings said one of the best memories is from Super Bowl
30, where he recorded two sacks -- a Super Bowl record that he shared with
several other players before it was broken the next year.
Humble beginnings
Being a solid performer on the gridiron and in his jet,
Hennings has always tried to strive for excellence.
Growing up in Elberon, Iowa, Hennings would sometimes put in
12-plus-hour days helping his father and grandfather on their farm, where they
predominately raised corn and a feedlot operation for cattle. He’d help
wherever needed, whether feeding the cattle, bailing hay, driving tractors, or
performing maintenance.
“The work ethic came from watching my father, my
grandfather, but a lot of it I can attribute it to my older brother, who really
pushed me to workout with him,” he said.
Hennings’ older brother, Todd, was a couple years older and
was the quarterback for their high school football team. Hennings said he was a
tight end, and he recalled his brother dragging him off to run routes and lift
weights.
“When I started to see the success of all the hard work that
I put in, then it became more of a self-driving motivation than having somebody
externally motivate me,” he said.
That motivation to be a better player and better person
carried over when it was time to attend college. Hennings had several
scholarships, but said he wanted a “holistic experience.” He yearned to be
challenged academically and wanted to have the experiences a typical college
graduate wouldn’t have.
Looking back, the leadership skills gained, the experience
of flying jets, and the camaraderie within his fighter squadron are things that
gave him skills he used on the gridiron and in his everyday life.
“You know, it all worked out great,” Hennings said. “I had
an experience flying that I would never trade. If I had to do it all over
again, I would do it exactly the same.”
Where he is now
Today, Hennings lives outside of Dallas, where he’s a
partner in a commercial real estate company and does a lot of public speaking,
which he said is his way of giving back.
“That’s my passion now in this last half of my life, is to
be an evangelist, in essence, for that aspect of a need of character in our
community and for us as individuals,” Hennings said.
An author of three books, he’s also married with two
children, who are both in college.
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