Former EC Redbird gets walk-on spot at Ark. Baptist PT.II

Editor’s Note: This is the final story in a series about 2023 East Carter graduate Robert Henning and his journey to play football at Arkansas Baptist College.

Robert Henning played baseball and basketball when he was an East Carter Redbird but he, along with Jordan Penn, knew something different was in store for him at the next level.

But Henning had an idea of what he should try to pursue at the nevel level.

“My family was telling me, you just need to go out there,” he said. “Because of your size, it’ll go to waste if you don’t.”

Turns out, when Henning visited Arkansas Baptist, the coaches there thought the exact same thing.

Fast forward a few months and last Saturday Henning stepped onto the field as a member of the Arkansas Baptist College football team when they went south to take on Houston Christian University in Texas.

“It was a really cool moment to see that,” Penn said. “That chance we took that October, that chance he took, coming into a structured environment, it really paid off. I was really proud.”

While Henning’s family and friends were all rooting him on, the only thing on the mind of the freshman lineman was what he needed to do.

“I was nervous,” Henning said. “My family and I were talking about it, we’ve got a group chat and I was telling them I was so nervous. I don’t know what to do. I’m not scared but I’m scared because it’s my first football ever and it’s college.”

Henning said playing basketball for Penn helped him with his ability to remember plays at the next level but it was the footwork he was more concerned about.”

“I know all the plays but the steps and the stuff you’ve got to do in your stance,” he said.

With games under his belt, Henning admitted it was a little easier to grasp what was happening and the speed of the game.

As Penn prepares to follow Henning for another sport and another season, he understands he’s also changed since Henning entered his life. When Henning started staying with Penn, Penn had started dating his now wife, Kristen but when Henning moved with them permantely, they were still newlyweds.

“I thought I was ready for that next step and taking Robert in kind of made me realize I have some changing to do,” he said. “This is what I want. Parenting is always something I wanted to do but taking on a 16-year-old two months into marriage was a tough task. We were wanting to have a kid of our own and that wasn’t happening so we laid into the fact that God put Robert into our life for a reason and maybe this is what we were supposed to do.

“We just dove right into it and figured it out on the fly. We learned on our parents quite a bit for advice and then we ended up having our baby in April, one month before Robert

graduated.”

Penn and his wife were a month away from being empty nesters with Henning graduating when the family welcomed the newest addition to the Penn’s.

While Henning hasn’t spent too much time with the new baby with him starting college, Penn sand it’s been a great interaction.

“He’s really great with kids,” Penn said of Henning. “I have two brothers and a sister ... We have a lot of neices and nephews. He always been really good with kids. He was super excited when we told him Kristen was pregnant and we were having one of our own.”

Penn shared another interesting fact about Henning entering his life.

“I lost my dad in a car wreck in 2005 when I was 18 years old,” he said. “His name was Rob Penn, which is what we call Robert (Big Rob). I thought it was an absolute crazy coincidence that this kid, who wanted to live with me, had the same name as my father who had passed away 15 years prior.

“It definitely played a big part in Kristen and I deciding that this was meant to be and our sign from God to take him in.”

However Henning entered Penn’s life doesn’t matter. It was part of a bigger plan that the two men came together and both of them are better because of it.

“From the moment he came into our house, we treated him like ours,” Penn said. “He’s just been one of us.”