Plenty of pro football superstars come from humble beginnings. But even the most creative and talented Hollywood scriptwriter would have a hard time inventing a more improbable path to the bright lights of the National Football League than the real one Dat Nguyen lived.
He was an immensely popular linebacker for just seven seasons, a punishing hitter who played the game with passion and intensity and football smarts that were obvious to anyone who saw him take the field. But the obstacles he had to overcome to reach the sport’s biggest stage should have stopped him long before he got there.
He was undersized. He was not terribly fast. Teammates had a difficult time understanding his accent as he called plays in the huddle. And, of course, most notably, there’s the not-inconsequential matter of being the child of Vietnamese refugees who fled their home in the middle of the night during a horrific war and survived a treacherous voyage at sea that included violent storms and actual pirates just to settle in a new country that, by and large, didn’t want them.
Those were the cards Dat Nguyen was dealt. And all he did with them was- against all odds- become the starting linebacker for the Dallas Cowboys. In the process, he changed the way many people in this country viewed people from his parents’ homeland. He’s inspired multiple generations of kids whose families have come from the other side of the world. And he continues to be a role model and a teacher to those around him, encouraging them to push forward and do exactly what the Americanized pronunciation of his own family name reminds them they can do, too.
Win.