NFL veteran harnesses magic and forgiveness to overcome adversity

Key Takeaways

Jon Dorenbos, a former NFL player and magician, shared his story of overcoming adversity and spoke about the power of forgiveness during the July 13 General Session at the NACo Annual Conference in Philadelphia, Pa.

Dorenbos played as a long snapper in the NFL for 14 seasons — 11 of them with the Philadelphia Eagles — but his first passion was magic. At age 12, his life was shattered when his father murdered his mother. He and his sister were placed in foster care, and he was later called to testify at the trial, and shown his mother’s autopsy photos. Amid the trauma and chaos, it was watching magician Bill Malone on television — and learning magic tricks himself — that brought him comfort and escape. “Magic saved my life,” Dorenbos said. He later became a finalist on America’s Got Talent with his magic act.

After his mother’s murder, Dorenbos underwent intensive therapy. What he took from that experience — and has carried with him ever since — is the belief that you must come to terms with your reality. The sooner you do, he says, the sooner you can begin to find forgiveness for others and for the world.

“The more I hated the world around me, the more I lost myself — bit by bit, piece by piece,” Dorenbos said. “It’s so easy to blame people and the world when circumstances don’t go our way.”

In 2017, Dorenbos was once again forced to confront a harsh reality. After being traded from the Eagles to the New Orleans Saints, a routine physical revealed a serious heart condition — one that required emergency open-heart surgery.

An aorta is typically the size of a nickel or dime, but Dorenbos’ had swollen to the size of a soda can, resulting in a life-threatening aneurysm, he said. What first felt like devastation — being traded from the Eagles, where he had hoped to finish his career — ultimately saved his life. He also recalled a moment from his time in Philadelphia, when a local reporter asked if it was true that a friend of his mother’s had sung “Wind Beneath My Wings” at her funeral. It was.

The reporter told him, “You’re an Eagle now, kid. When life gets tough and the game gets harder, just open your wings. The song says, ‘I can fly higher than an eagle — you are the wind beneath my wings.’ My guess is, if you open your wings, your mom will be the one pushing the wind to carry you through the storms.”

Dorenbos reflected on the moment following his open-heart surgery, saying he felt as though his mother had once again helped guide him through. “I had the wind beneath my wings here in Philly for a long time,” he said. “And my mom trained me in New Orleans to have my life saved by a saint.” 

Dorenbos said he spent much of his youth filled with “venomous anger” — toward his father, toward life, and toward the hand he’d been dealt. He didn’t speak to his father for more than 30 years. But after becoming a father himself, he made the decision to reach out and forgive — not for his father’s sake, but to free himself from the heavy burden of hatred he had carried for so long.

“I said, ‘Am I going to be bitter or better from what I came from?’” Dorenbos said. “… Me forgiving my dad had nothing to do with him. Me forgiving my dad was this — someone who is no longer in my life, shall no longer affect my life. Someone or something that is no longer in my life shall no longer affect my heart, my soul. For forgiveness has nothing to do with anything other than ‘Forgive, for I and you deserve peace.’”

No matter what the world throws at you, it’s up to you to chart your own path, Dorenbos said. 

“May every one of us make the decision that, no matter how hard the world gets, we rise and live in vision,” Dorenbos said. “Moments in time don’t define who we are — we define who we are. Together, we will hate less, we will blame less, and we shall all forgive just a little bit more.”