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ANAHEIM, Calif. — The most famous long snapper in the world is in the backseat of a midsize SUV with its flashers on, eastbound along Katella Avenue shortly after the Disneyland fireworks finish, shouting directions at his high school friends over the phone.
“This is not how you do a procession,” Jon Dorenbos says.
We’re a semi-frazzled caravan en route to a Tony Robbins event at the 18,000-seat Honda Center. It’s the third day of the motivational guru’s “Unleash the Power Within” seminar. Dorenbos is tonight’s closer, only 10 miles from Pacifica High School itself. A big deal, even for a former Pro Bowler who finished third on “America’s Got Talent.” So a bunch of longtime pals are here. Dorenbos can do wild stuff with a deck of cards, but getting people from a hotel bar into multiple cars and the correct parking lot is the real trick.
“Life is Magic.” That’s the mantra. It’s the title of his book. It’s on the trucker caps he has in a box for later. Friend-wrangling aside, this somehow barely covers it.
The most mundane thing about Dorenbos might be the 162 consecutive games he appeared in for the Philadelphia Eagles. In a single dinner conversation, he pinballs from a harrowing childhood to his friendship with the Broken Lizard comedy troupe to stealing a watch on a dare from Andy Reid to that time he performed at Barbra Streisand’s surprise birthday party while John Mayer played guitar. Hanging around him is like orbiting a pistol star.
“The NFL was always that thing that made this other part of my life so much more interesting,” Dorenbos says, appropriately wearing an Eagles hoodie the evening before a keynote speech to thousands of strangers. “The ‘yes-and’ gets you into a lot of doors. A lot of doors.”
Some magicians won’t give away their tricks. This one does, and you still wonder how they’re possible.
In 1992, when Dorenbos was 12, his father killed his mother. He testified in the trial that led to a second-degree murder conviction. Dorenbos entered the foster system, where card magic became a refuge. “To this day,” he says, “the sound of the riffle is where life makes sense.” He was adopted by his aunt and uncle in California, lettered in four sports in high school, spent one year at a junior college and then landed at the University of Texas-El Paso when a friend called to say the Miners needed a long snapper. Dorenbos spliced film of himself with the snapper from his junior college and sent it over.
And, presto, the long snapper on UTEP’s football centennial team, announced in 2014, was Jon Dorenbos.
In a way, football and sleight of hand never ran parallel as much as they twisted into an elemental helix. When Dorenbos tried out for the Eagles in 2006, Andy Reid knew two things: Former UTEP coach Bob Stull had recommended Dorenbos, and the guy could do cool tricks. Reid walked Dorenbos into the lunchroom and asked him if he could steal defensive coordinator Jim Johnston’s watch. Dorenbos guesses it took a minute.
“Welcome to The Birds,” Reid told him. Only 10 players, ever, have played more games for the Philadelphia Eagles.
Dorenbos wore his jersey while doing tricks on “The Ellen Show.” The “America’s Got Talent” folks put him in the mix for Season 11 because, by his own estimation, he was an NFL player who could do card tricks. It was another time magic saved him: Dorenbos says he later was up for a hosting post that went to Tyra Banks, which meant he kept playing. Which got him traded to the New Orleans Saints. Which prompted a physical that revealed an aortic aneurysm. Without career-ending heart surgery, Dorenbos likely doesn’t make it to age 45 and a Tony Robbins event.
Or that Streisand birthday when the surprise guests were Babyface, Cindy Crawford, John Mayer and … him.
Or the Andrea Bocelli Foundation cruise he joined at the last minute in September — “‘Can you bring fun?’ Can I bring fun? Hell, yeah, I can bring fun!” is how Dorenbos explains that gig — which ended with the legendary tenor performing on a stage set up in one of his marble mines.
“I remember telling my wife, ‘Honey, stand up and dance,’” Dorenbos says. “She was like, ‘Why?’ I’m like, ‘Because this is celebrity, classy people. We’re never getting invited back.’”
He makes 75 to 95 speaking appearances per year. He’s headlined Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas and delivered keynotes for dozens of companies, including Apple, Coca-Cola, AT&T and Pfizer. It’s preposterous. It’s also not an accident. “I’ve had a motto in my life: Never become what you do, be who you are, and may every experience be a great story for your grandkids,” he says. It’s the fusion creating Dorenbos’ energy. Why he is who he is. Probably at all times, but certainly on the way to the Honda Center on a Saturday night in Orange County.
He can’t wait to tell you how to do this magic.
The friend caravan retains integrity. Blessedly so: The Tony Robbins attendees have been at it for 14 hours, and now they have one last break.
On our final approach to the arena, it appears a lot of them are leaving.
“Hey, guys,” Dorenbos deadpans to his pals, “the reason you’re invited is I need someone to cheer for me.”
Inside, it’s not nearly so dire. Anyone lingering in the upper deck is welcome to fill the lower bowl, per an arena announcement. But that still leaves thousands here, and they’re quickly on their feet when five dancers in red “Make Your Move” T-shirts emerge to reenergize the crowd as DMX’s “Party Up” blasts over the speakers.
Robbins, it seems, is done for the day. Scott Harris — a life coach and motivational speaker — is on hand to praise everyone who stayed. It’s a roller-coaster, Harris says, and you need all the bits. Which brings him to the day’s final guest. A man with an infectious spirit, is how Harris puts it. It’s not about the magic in the cards. It’s about the magic in his lessons.
Out comes Jon Dorenbos.
“I’m about to kick some ass!” Dorenbos says. “I’m pumped! Southern California, baby! First time in my hometown!”
Off we go, swept into an hourlong gale of comedy and poignance. Poetry and fun delivered via splatter gun. Dorenbos pulls out a deck of cards, asks an audience member to choose one, then returns to the stage. He selects one card. He does not reveal it.
He asks which card the guy chose. It’s the king of diamonds.
“Did you say king of diamonds?” Dorenbos asks. He then flings the entire deck into the crowd.
“Nailed it,” he says.
He decries “pity claps” after a delayed reaction to a trick but duly acknowledges a “Go Birds!” from the crowd. Dorenbos rolls video of his snapping days — he taps his rear end to confirm that’s the view everyone is getting — and declares he played “six and a half minutes of actual football” across his 14 seasons. He tells a story about the Eagles fan who had Jon Dorenbos sign a thigh tattoo of Jon Dorenbos … and then got the signature inked as well. “This guy right here,” Dorenbos says, in front of a giant screen featuring a giant leg tat, “is awesome.”
Then comes the part about life being hard.
He talks about his father, his hero, bludgeoning his mother to death with a bench grinder and a sledgehammer. He talks about seeing the autopsy photos and defensive wounds on his mother’s left hand. He talks about standing on a cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean with his sister, on their therapist’s advice, and screaming. He says he hoped his mother would send him a wave of good mojo.
“Shame on me, shame on everyone in this room if you wake up and don’t think life is magic,” Dorenbos says. “You have the opportunity to make a decision to be happy.”
We’re belted into a carnival ride. Only here it’s emotions doing the rising and plunging. Dorenbos picked up card magic during his time in foster care after watching a VHS tape featuring magician Bill Malone … and signing with the Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent got him invited to a convention where, to his delight, he met Malone.
He invokes advice from his grandfather, who bought a baseball cap for every team Dorenbos played for: Kid, sometimes you gotta wear a different hat in this life.
“Never be afraid to wear a different hat in this world!” Dorenbos declares, as he whips his “Life is Magic” caps into the crowd. “Rock it loud and proud!”
His “America’s Got Talent” run, at first, serves as a fiesta of self-deprecation. “Know the only thing worse than losing to a 12-year-old with a ukulele?” Dorenbos asks. “Returning to an NFL locker room after losing to a 12-year-old with a ukulele.” It then transforms into the experience that, after a few twists, sent him to New Orleans and ended his career by saving him. “When life gets hard,” he says, “rewrite the story that makes sense for you.”
It’s close to midnight now. Anyone in here has to be exhausted.
They keep up with Dorenbos, though. Through his explanation of why he started pulling kids from the crowd to toss a football before every game. “Never stop playing catch with your 12-year-old self,” he says. Through his story about calling the NFL for help, because he wanted to track down his father a few weeks before his daughter was born. After 27 years, anger seemed like a sickness worth curing.
“The more I hated the world around me,” Dorenbos says, “the more I lost myself bit by bit.”
He met his father at a restaurant in Spokane, between shows in Calgary and Las Vegas. Five and a half hours, they sat together. And Dorenbos gave his dad forgiveness.
By this point, Dorenbos has retrieved a deck of cards from a plastic container. He deals. One blank card and three Jacks in four quadrants. Through the story of meeting his father and finding a way past impossible tragedy, Dorenbos picks up cards and flips them over. Taking value here, giving there.
By the end, blank cards fill three of the quadrants. “Hate just a little less, blame just a little less,” Dorenbos says, gradually revealing the four Jacks together in one last cohered group, “and may we all forgive a little more.”
The crowd erupts. He takes a bow. He calls for his wife and friends to join him on stage. It’s now 12:04 a.m. Yesterday came and went.
“Every one of you are rock stars!” Dorenbos tells his audience. “It’s a great day to be alive!”