From the Skies Over Northern Iraq to the Super Bowl
Chad Hennings
I’ve been fortunate to experience some amazing things, so I speak from experience when I say my identity isn’t found in my accomplishments. In just a 12-year span I was the top Division I interior defensive lineman in the nation, a fighter pilot flying A-10 missions in the Persian Gulf and, as a defensive tackle for the Dallas Cowboys, the winner of three Super Bowl rings.
I consider it a tremendous blessing that I had the opportunity to do all of those things, but my identity and my significance don’t lie in any of them. As I learned in one of the darkest times of my life, my identity is solely in my relationship with Christ.
Shortly after I graduated from the Air Force Academy in 1988, my greatest struggle was the fear that I might have to sacrifice one dream—playing in the NFL—for another—flying Air Force jets. The Cowboys had drafted me, but I had a four-year military commitment that ballooned to eight when I pursued the path of pilot training.
I was stationed at RAF Bentwaters in the United Kingdom, and from there I did two deployments to the Persian Gulf, where I flew A-10 Thunderbolts out of Incirlik Air Base in Turkey. During those two assignments, I flew 45 humanitarian missions as part of Operation Provide Comfort, a campaign which provided aid and relief to Kurdish refugees in Northern Iraq. I channeled the competition that had fueled me on the gridiron as an All-American college player into flying missions, twice winning the Air Force Achievement Award and being promoted to captain in 1992.
When I started my military service, football was always in the back of my mind, and it was initially difficult to shift gears to focus all of my mental and physical energy on the challenges of becoming a top-notch fighter pilot. But soon I was fully immersed in flying, even knowing that eight years in that role could take away the prospect of pro football. The circumstance that changed everything, after the first Gulf War, was a troop drawdown order to a budget reduction that reduced my commitment back to four years and, in a whirlwind, sent me to Cowboys training camp.
My pivot from one dream to another was so quick that I flew my last mission in Northern Iraq in early 1992, and I played in the Super Bowl that concluded the 1992 season. As a 26-year-old rookie, the early months of my return to football were rocky, since I hadn’t played the game in four years. I played special teams to get back on the field and prove myself, and by Super Bowl XXVII I was a key contributor to the squad.
But it was two weeks after my third Super Bowl in 1996—a game in which I had two sacks and we defeated the Steelers 27-17—that the truest test of my faith and my identity came. My two-year-old son Chase suddenly became very ill, the victim of a debilitating autoimmune illness. Those weeks are a blur of hospital rooms, cross-country flights to see specialists, and moments of absolute fear when my wife Tammy and I thought we might lose our son. And through that wilderness, I came to realize that the things I had accomplished didn’t define me at all.
I came to the end of myself and had to truly understand, in the moment, what it meant to put my life and the life of my family in God’s hands. When you’re in the midst of it, you don’t see the sovereignty and the grace of God, but when you look back, you see how he was walking stride for stride with you, and at times he was actually carrying us. Because there’s no way we could have endured that season out of our own strength.
Through hardship, I learned to rely completely on the Lord and to see myself through His eyes, to treat the opportunities and gifts of my military and football careers as steps to a platform from which I could give God glory. I retired from the NFL in 2000 and served in the Air Force Reserve for almost a decade after leaving active service, and because my story is unique, I now travel and speak to groups all over the country.
When I speak, I tell people that for me, it always boils down to this equation: identity first, plus integrity, equals excellence. It doesn’t matter what you do in life—athletics, law, education, business, raising children—that always holds true. I have strived to find my identity in Christ, exemplify integrity and demonstrate hard work and commitment in everything I do. I need to rely on Jesus daily, and as our nation becomes more and more divided I am convinced that Christians are called to extend the grace and mercy of Jesus to others, rather than engage them in a debate, because the only thing that can truly unite us is Christ.
Chad Hennings serves on the board of directors for Promise Keepers, and he is one of the keynote speakers for the 2020 Promise Keepers Virtual Conference, scheduled for July 16-17. More information about the event is available here.