Franchise ResourcesFootball is always on Tony Henner's mind, no matter what part of the world he is in
June 18, 2007
Tony Henner started his career in the IFL in 2002 with the Racine Threat. Never playing any kind of organized football he was just basically out there with his brother Jim hanging out. After that season he talked to Pat Mace who at the time was the owner of the West Milwaukee Gladiators.
During their conversation Pat asked Henner if any of his friends wanted to come play for his team because he was looking for some more talented guys after coming off a 0-8 season. Tony went to a few practices and after throwing the ball a bit Pat asked if he would play quarterback. Henner figured ya sure why not. In two seasons with the Gladiators the team made back to back playoff appearances.
Both years were big learning experiences for Tony as he learned a lot of valuable lessons. Despite learning on the run he had a lot of fun because the team was mostly consisted of close friends of his either from high school or the neighborhood he grew up in. Coming into the 2005 season Tony thought he was the most mentally and physically prepared that he ever had been for the game. But then as fate would have it, two months before the 2005 season was about to kick off, Tony was called upon like many other IFL players to do a tour in Iraq with the Army to serve his country.
Tony Henner serves as a U.S. Army Staff Sergeant and holds the title of squad leader for an infantry scout platoon. While in Iraq Henner performed convoy security operations. "Basically, we would be the over watch for military vehicles hauling supplies from base to base" said Henner. "This mission took us all over the country which made for many long trips." He added, "Our missions could be as short as 5 days or as long as 25."
At times Henner found it very frustrating to deal with being gone from his home base that long. "You were basically living out of a bag and had no access to do laundry". We also never really knew when and where we were going to sleep on any given day." Henner said. Henners platoon missions were run at night most of the time so sleeping during the day was very tough in 130 degree desert heat. "Those long nights made energy drinks become your best friend."
While being gone, Henner had it in his head that he wanted to return and play football again. So no matter how hard it was or how tired he was, he would make it a point to do routine work outs to stay in shape. "The two great things about Iraq are that the bases all have excellent gyms and enough food to make you gain 50 pounds." When I had chances to use the internet I would check the league website and e-mail some friends to hear what was going on and how teams were doing." Henner explained, I wanted to stay involved as much as I could in whatever way I could. On Saturday nights back at our base we played 7 on 7 flag football games. Anyone who was not on a mission and wanted to show was welcome to come out and play. Doing that kept me realizing how much I truly missed competing."
Being deployed from June 2005 thru August 2006 Henner missed two full seasons of playing football. After the 2005 season the West Milwaukee Gladiators were no longer a team. "A lot of my friends scattered and went to a couple different places. At this time I figured I better start looking around at what teams I was interested in trying out for." said Henner.
He emailed the owner of the Milwaukee Venom, Jimmy Medrano and told him his situation. Medrano then informed Henner that he and anyone else is more then welcome to come and try-out for the team. From then on it looked as Henner would fit in with the Venom pretty good. "I don't have everyone I used to play next to me anymore, but now I quickly made some new friends with the Venom. It took me some time to get the rust off from not playing any organized ball in two years, but now I don't think I have ever been this excited to start a season and I can't wait to see where it takes us."
