(Hank) Moorehouse 1934 – 2011 - The Society of American Magicians

aseball. He was also a big Seattle Mariners fan. When he went
to the games, he would hang out by the player’s entrance before
and after the game. He was not an autograph seeker, but just
liked watching the players drive in and out. One day, Mariner
right fielder Jay Buhner came up to talk to him. That gave him
a thrill he would never forget.
When he moved to Southern California he continued to play
basketball and baseball. Once he hit high school, he played
varsity baseball and football as a freshman. This was due not
only to his athletic abilities, but also his size. He was one of
the biggest kids at his school, but at age sixteen he stopped
growing, and all-of-sudden, he wasn’t the biggest kid anymore.
In his senior year he still played both sports, but thought he
might become a professional baseball player.
Upon graduation from high school, he entered Golden West
Junior College in Huntington Beach, California. He chose G.W.
after talking with his high school coach, Bill Simpson, about
pursuing football at the collegiate level. Simpson said, “Never
stop playing; go where you can play, and someone will spot
you.” Since Golden West had a 0-and-30 record, he knew he’d
play right away there. Due to the low number of players on the
team, he played multiple positions: quick side defensive end,
outside linebacker and fullback. He decided to transfer out after
his freshman year.
A friend at the University of Texas at El Paso told him they
were looking for a long snapper. Being that Jon wasn’t a long
snapper, he had to get creative with the film that he sent UTEP.
Jon had good speed; his buddy Nick Heinle was known for his
hard hits, and Tim Thurman was the team’s six-foot-six tight end
and long snapper. Jon combined the highlights of him and Nick,
added Tim’s long-snapping highlights, and made the ultimate
highlight tape. He sent that tape to the University of Texas El
Paso claiming it was all him; after watching it, they offered him
a full scholarship to be their long snapper. Though he wasn’t
a long snapper and only six feet tall, he quickly learned the
position and found he had a real knack for it. When people ask
Jon what his favorite magic trick is, he replies, “Getting into
UTEP.”
He played for UTEP for three years but was under the radar
for most of those years. No one had really heard of him until
right before the NFL draft. A friend who was already playing
in the NFL recommended him to his agent. The agent took
a look at Jon and liked what he saw. He had to participate in
Pro Day: the day the team scouts go to all the schools to look
42 M-U-M Magazine
Performing Card to Mouth for the Cowboys
TE Jason Witten at Pro Bowl in Miami
With Rascal Flatts on their tour bus
over potential draft picks. Jon had a slight problem. He had had
surgery when he was a kid, and scar tissue continued to form in
his groin area. He started feeling pain. He actually had a double
hernia, but due to the scar tissue, it was misdiagnosed. On Pro
Day, he could barely move. He had been injecting the tendons
in his groin with cortisone, but it wasn’t healing the injury. He
got two more cortisone injections before his school’s Pro Day.
Although he was unable to even jog, Jon passed the lifting test
with ease, bench-pressing 225 pounds twenty times. But it was
the forty-yard dash that he was dreading. As Jon lined up to
run, the head scout yelled out, “Jon, you are not fast, nor will
you make it in this league because of your speed. All the scouts
want is to see you snap.” By some miracle he didn’t have to
run for the scouts. The Buffalo Bills signed Jon as a free agent
in 2003. When asked what his second favorite magic trick is,
Jon replies, “Making it all the way to the NFL and never being
timed in the forty-yard dash, the signature test of all players.”
He reported to Buffalo on the assigned day and checked
into the hotel room they had reserved for him. Within a few
minutes, he got a phone call from Jim Kelly, the former Bills’
quarterback, now a Hall of Famer. Kelly introduced himself and
told Jon that he had heard of his reputation as a magician. He
explained that he was hosting a charity event the next day and
asked if Jon would come out and do some strolling magic. Jon
nearly jumped out of his skin at the opportunity. The next day
he was picked up at his hotel by a limousine. Kelly got out and
told him “how stoked” he was to meet him. When he got in, he
saw that the other occupants were Dan Marino, Joe Montana,
Drew Bledsoe, Bruce Smith, and Thurman Thomas. One of
them said, “The Magic Man is here. The party starts now!” Jon
thought he had died and gone to heaven. He was a hit; since that
function, he has been on the A-list of requested guests at many
other such functions.
During the draft, Sports Illustrated asked St. Louis Rams
coach Bobby April for his opinion of Jon. April said he
reminded him of their own snapper and made some suggestions
of things Jon should work on. Coach April later joined the
Buffalo Bills and coached Jon his second season in the NFL. He
really learned the position as he went along. Even so, Jon feels
he struggled for two years at Buffalo, partly because he never
felt so cold in his life. During this time, he did get to hang out
with several prominent local magicians like Vic Trabucco, Dan
Block, Mike Gallo, and Paul Richards. He also met a man who
would change the rest of his life, a motivational speaker named