Dat Nguyen

Dat Nguyen:  Former NFL Star,
 First Vietnamese-American Professional Football Player

Dat Nguyen (1975-     ) is the first Vietnamese-American to be recognized by the NFL as a professional football player.  Born to Vietnamese parents at a refugee center at Port Chafee, Alabama on September 25, 1975, Dat Nguyen had actually been conceived in Vietnam.  Both of his parents were former nationals of South Vietnam who had fled their homeland immediately after the Fall of Saigon on April 30, 1975.  Dat's mother was already four months pregnant with him at the time she fled Vietnam to resettle in the United States.  Eventually Dat's parents would resettle in Rockport, Texas which is where he grew up.  During his high school years at Rockport-Fulton High School, Dat excelled in competitive sports and played for his high school football team as middle linebacker.  After graduating from high school, Dat elected to enroll at Texas A&M University on a scholarship.  As a college football player, Dat played linebacker from 1995-1998 for the Texas A&M Aggies football team.  After being named Aggies MVP of the year in 1997, in the following year which would also be his last year of college football, Dat Nguyen would become a career record holder in Texas A&M University with a total of 517 career tackles.


Upon being drafted by the Dallas Cowboys in 1999, Dat Nguyen turned professional.  He remained a team member of the Dallas Cowboys as linebacker for a total of seven seasons.  In the year 2005, Dat Nguyen suffered a serious neck injury which then placed him on the injured reserved list for the NFL team and ultimately led to his retirement from the NFL on March of the following year.  However, his association with the Dallas Cowboys was far from over as in the year 2007 Dat Nguyen would begin a new career as an NFL coach and was hired by the Dallas Cowboys' head coach, Wade Philips, as the NFL team's assistant linebackers coach and defensive quality control coach.  Finally, in the year 2010, Dat Nguyen's lengthy professional association with the Dallas Cowboys came to an end when he became the inside linebackers coach for Texas A&M University Aggies College Football Team, a position he held until the end of the 2011 season.


Married to his high school sweetheart, Dat Nguyen and his wife, Becky, have three daughters.  Most recently, Dat Nguyen embarked on yet another new career, as a radio sports show host.  In 2012, he started co-hosting with Jasson Minnix on an afternoon sports talk radio program in San Antonio, Texas on KZDC.