National Football League

CALM AFTER THE STORMS

Published Jun. 30, 2017 6:28 p.m. ET

foxsports

There was no luck of the draw for 36-year-old Philadelphia Eagles long snapper Jon Dorenbos. According to the NCAA, 1.6 percent of college football players make it to the NFL. The odds one turns pro and then becomes an entertainer performing on primetime network television, all after overcoming an unthinkable tragedy? There’s a better chance of you winning the Power Ball.

Twice.

What Dorenbos turned his life into is beyond magic — it’s a miracle. It’s the story of a man who took the horrid hand he was dealt at a young age, shuffled the deck, and dealt himself a pair of winning ones: football, and magic.

“It’s awesome,” Dorenbos tells me Thursday morning after advancing to the finals on America’s Got Talent the previous night. “I have two opportunities that you dream of as a little kid. One is to play in the NFL, and one is to perform on stage. Not only [on] NBC, but at the Dolby Theater — sold out. Just that alone is awesome.”

After getting the nod on Wednesday night’s results show, the longest-tenured Eagle flew back to Philadelphia for Thursday’s preseason game against the New York Jets.

“The support I’ve gotten from the Philadelphia Eagles organization is everything I could have dreamed of,” he says. “I get a little emotional because I’ve been here 11 years and [it’s] been a really long time. I’ve always considered them my family. Their support to me… they’ve gone above and beyond.”

JONNNNNNNN! On to the finals! pic.twitter.com/CQvPhPm9qc

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) September 1, 2016

On June 2, 1992, when Dorenbos was 12 years-old, he watched his father, Alan, murder his mother, Kathy, with a grinding tool. The man who was supposed to protect and guide Jon through life spent 11 years of a 13-year, eight-month sentence in prison for second-degree murder. The last time Jon saw his father was in prison — not long after the murder itself.

“I went through pretty intense therapy for over a year,” said the two-time Pro Bowler. “It was intense, and it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It taught me a lot about myself.”

Finding Magic

“At that time, I discovered magic and spent a lot of time by myself,” Dorenbos recalls. “I think alone time is good. It’s time that you can reflect reflect and learn a lot about yourself. I found happiness. And I found this deep appreciation for life and for opportunity knowing that your life can be completely turned upside down right away. It’s kind of cliche, [but] our time is limited. You better live every moment like it’s your last because that’s the way this world is.”

After leaving a home that no longer existed in Seattle, Jon and his sister were placed in foster care. His aunt Susan, Kathy’s sister, got custody of the two children. It was then that the nearly teen-aged Jon saw his first magic act.

“I saw a 16-year-old named Michael Groves,” he said. “He was a magician that was a neighbor of a little league coach that I had. He would come over and do tricks for us. It changed my life.”

His enthusiasm was so profound, in fact, that his little-league coach took him and Groves to a Seattle magic shop, where Jon was given his first book. Right off the bat, Dorenbos loved the tediousness, the intricate coordination of pulling off the seemingly impossible. More than anything, he loved feeling like a kid.

“There were times when I was in a little-league field and I was looking for my mom, and she wasn’t there, and neither was my dad,” Jon recalls. “They’re not there. Then you’re like, ‘Gosh, what’s going on with my life?’ And all these things are going through your head. Magic and cards: Those were the only things that when I sat down, I was just in that moment. It was that peace of mind that had me going back.”

Finding Football

It was in high school that Jon began to tackle his other calling. At the best of his friends, Dorenbos — who’d always been “a baseball guy” — decided to try his hand on the gridiron.

“I played my freshman year, and I did well,” he says. “The varsity team had an injury, so when we went to the playoffs, I [moved up] from freshman football. I was held back a year, so I was old enough to start at the varsity level. Started at outside linebacker, varsity playoffs my freshman year. It was crazy.”

According to him, balancing the two careers has been relatively easy. Not only because of the Eagles’ steadfast support, but because the two fields surprisingly have a lot in common.

“There’s so many similarities,” Dorenbos says. “And it all comes down to there’s the moment right before you go out in a game and in the theater.

The Calm Before The Storm

“For me, everything’s quiet, everything’s still,” Dorenbos reflects. “You usually hear one thing. Maybe it’s a tech backstage hammering something and you just hear that hammer. Everything else is quiet. In a game, maybe it’s just one fan heckling or it’s the sound of the chain, they’re opening the chains and you just hear the chain fall… As soon as you step out, it’s the calm before the storm. Everything slows down, your heart rate slows down. You hear your heart in your head. You feel it in your chest. Then, as soon as you run out of the tunnel or you run onstage, the crowd kicks in. It’s loud, the energy kicks in. For me, I just get zoned. I’m prepared. Football’s taught me that about life. The more you prepare, the less you feel pressure.”

Although he’s become a bigger name, dazzling audiences and the AGT judges with his mesmerizing sleights of hand, Jon found himself in a position to help others early on in his NFL career. Here, finally, was a platform from which he could share his incredible story, and with a resonance capable of touching lives far beyond the stadium stands.

“Peter King was the first one, on HBO, to kind of feature my life in 2003,” he recalls. “It created this awareness for an issue that we have in this country. One that wasn’t as talked about. [Domestic violence] still really not talked about a lot.”

As his profile increased, Dorenbos found more and more people were reaching out to him. People with horror stories just like his. Kids who’d been through the worst kind of domestic trauma.

“They put me on a platform to be able to reach out to these families,” he says. “I’m one person, but I really do the best I can to contact them and meet with these kids. There’s probably very, very few people that these kids can meet and look them in the eye and say, ‘Look, I’ve been where you are, I’ve felt similar feelings, it won’t be the exact same, I don’t know how you feel right now, but I’ll tell you this, I felt similar feelings and the anger, the betrayal, the questioning, the guilt, all these things. I’ve been in your shoes.”

Jon will appear on AGT‘s season finale on Sept. 13, with the results show slated to air the following night. Regardless of if he wins the show and its million dollar prize, Dorenbos doesn’t see himself walking away from the game of football any time soon. Not after the struggles and sacrifices it took to get here. Not after the tragedy that would’ve sent a lesser spirit reeling into the psychic abyss. More than two decades after having so much of his life taken from him, Jon Dorenbos isn’t about to let his new lives disappear.

“When I first did the show, that was one of the questions I was asked by the judges, ‘How are you going to make this work?'” Dorenbos recalls. “And guess what, I found a way to make it work. I haven’t had to pick one or the other my entire life. I’m going to keep doing both as long as I can.”