Chad Henne ready to pass on football know-how to new generation of Bulldogs
Chad Henne shows up at Gurski Stadium or Bulldog Field as often as some Wilson football players during the spring and early summer.
The former Bulldogs quarterback is there to work out and stay sharp during his offseason; he’ll work on his footwork and throw the football to keep right arm in shape. Eventually he’ll find his way to the practice field, to observe Wilson’s quarterbacks and offer a word of advice here and there.
“It’s amazing how quickly he’ll pick something up,” said Wilson coach Doug Dahms. “He’ll tell them what coverage (the defense) was in and where they should’ve been looking first.”
Maybe not so amazing. Henne, after all, has spent the past 14 seasons playing quarterback in the NFL, breaking down defenses, watching film and, in recent seasons, sitting at the elbow of Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid, an offensive savant if there is such a thing.
Henne set the standard for Berks passers when he played at Wilson from 2000 to 2003. He started as a freshman and threw for 1,835 yards. No Berks freshman had done that before; none’s come close since. Before he left West Lawn he had completed more passes for more yards and more touchdowns than any quarterback in Berks history.
In the two decades since no one has come close to his 7,071 career passing yards, 563 career completions or 74 career scoring passes.
He went on to the University of Michigan, where he became the first true freshman to quarterback his team to a Big Ten championship. By the time he was done in Anne Arbor he had thrown more touchdown passes than anybody in Big Ten history not named Drew Brees.
Henne was taken in the second round of the 2008 NFL draft by the Miami Dolphins and went on to start 31 games for the Dolphins and 22 for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Over the last four seasons he’s settled comfortably into a backup role with the Chiefs, a job he hopes to secure again for the 2022 season.
Once his NFL career is done he plans to return to his Berks roots, making Spring Township his full-time home along with wife Brittany — also a Wilson grad — and their children, 8-year-old Chace and 6-year-old Hunter.
He has considered coaching in the NFL or college, but the time commitment involved at those levels can be all-consuming; he’s not interested in that.
He’d be happier coaching at the high school level and working with young kids, to share the knowledge he has gathered over two decades since last wearing a Wilson uniform.
“I would love to coach, go back to (the) high school, help out there, train quarterbacks on the side,” said the 36-year-old Henne. “Help develop the youth. That’s my vision. I feel I still have to be in the game; there’s too much knowledge that I can (use to) help make young men better.”
A person of Henne’s stature naturally would attract the attention of promising young quarterbacks. Who wouldn’t want to play for a guy with NFL ties?
Dahms thinks Henne would be a perfect fit.
“He has a natural low-key ability to connect with kids,” he said. “He’s not trying to blow his own horn. He’s just out there doing his own thing. He’s always been a nuts-and-bolts (guy), able to break things down and show them the little intricacies.”
Henne doesn’t believe he’d have difficulty scaling down the sophisticated NFL version of the game he’s familiar with in order to make it work at the high school level.
“(Wilson offensive coordinator) Jeremy (Palm) will ask: ‘Can you transition your NFL game to a high school player?’ I believe I can,” Henne said. “I think I can help out, for sure.
“If Wilson needs help, obviously I’ll be there to help, and if any other team needs somebody, as well. I’ll be up for anything.
“I would love to call plays and be an offensive coordinator. Whether I want to be a head coach (eventually), I’m not sure.”
Henne could probably coach a few other sports, too. He’s played most of them. He was a junior high county wrestling champion before switching to basketball in high school. He played baseball through junior high before switching to track and field, where he earned PIAA medals in three events: The javelin, shot put and 4×100 relay.
Fans across the country who saw him take off out of the pocket for a critical gain late in the 2021 AFC divisional playoff against the Cleveland Browns had no idea Henne was a sprinter in high school. He ran the second leg on the 4×100 relay. Together with Travis Mosser, Shawn Smith and Andy Lehatto, they won a District 3 gold medal and finished fourth at the state meet.
Henne almost ended up as a linebacker at Wilson. Dahms, then the Bulldogs’ defensive coordinator, would’ve started him there as a freshman if he had his druthers.
“At the end of preseason, I told (head coach Jim) Cantafio that if he’s not you’re starting quarterback he’s going to be our starting outside linebacker,” Dahms said. “Well, that ended that.”
Cantafio was not about to subject his prize pupil to defense and rejected the idea out of hand. Henne never played a down on defense; he was behind center in the Bulldogs’ season opener in 2000 and stayed there for four years.
Someday in the near future he could be grooming future Wilson quarterbacks.