Chester’s Shemaj Henry has played football for only three years. Now he’s bound for Syracuse.

It felt like hours of waiting. Hours of a wet, sweaty T-shirt sticking to his back on a stifling summer day in a long line.

Shemaj Henry just wanted to ride a roller coaster.

That’s all.

The problem was he couldn’t fit. He laughs now over the recollection of the roller-coaster operator trying to jam him into the coaster carriage. He wasn’t laughing then as a 14-year-old, feeling eyes on him as he left with his head down.

He says he had to be embarrassed into changing his life — and finding football.

Henry was once 430 pounds, at age 14. He would need a railing to walk up a flight of steps. Going to Six Flags Great Adventure with the family was no fun for him. He never liked looking in a mirror. The times he did, he would grab his belly with both hands and ask himself, “How can I lose this?”

Football helped him lose it. Football changed his direction.

The Chester High senior, who plays left offensive tackle, is 6-foot-8 and 315 pounds after losing more than 100 pounds in 18 months. He has committed to play college football at Syracuse next fall. What is more remarkable is that Henry has been playing organized football for only three years.

He had to be shown how to put on shoulder pads. He had to be shown the rudiments of the game. Keisha Henry, Shemaj’s mother, was too afraid to let her son play, fearful he would get hurt after he broke his right leg when he was hit by a car at age 3. She remembers the call no mother wants to get, that her son was in the hospital.

Now Shemaj Henry is on the verge of making Chester sports history as the first student-athlete to leave high school in January for early admittance to Syracuse, and he has played a foundational role in the 8-0 Clippers’ drive for their first PIAA District 1 Class 5A title.

And it started with a roller-coaster ride.

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“I can say football saved my life,” said Henry, who says he carries a 3.8 grade point average. “I would probably be 500 pounds by now if I wasn’t playing football. I had to change my life. It was so hard going to Six Flags Great Adventure, watching my family get on rides, and I had to walk around all day and win prizes. I couldn’t get on any rides because I was too big. …

“I remember trying to get on rides. The seat would not lock. The [carriage] they put you in would not come all the way down. I was too massive. Yeah, sure, I can laugh about it now, but I was a kid, a big kid who did not understand what was going on. I wasn’t laughing about it then. I had to develop mental toughness. I had to start putting in hard work.”

That’s when football entered his life. Three years ago, his older brother, Shakir, approached Chester’s newly hired head coach, Dennis Shaw. It would be up to Shaw to talk Keisha Henry into allowing Shemaj to play.

Shaw recalls Shakir telling him, “My brother is as big as a house and should play football.”

Shemaj Henry was so large he could barely move. Shaw and his staff wanted to help Henry lose weight. He stood on the sideline for most of his sophomore season.

At first, Henry would walk through running drills. He showed up for weight room sessions. He may have had dubious self-esteem, although he was there every day. He still put in the work.

Henry has gone from benching 205 pounds to 365. In a year’s time, he went from squatting 225 pounds to 450.

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“That’s on Shemaj,” Shaw said. “Shemaj has been through a few things. I credit him for how much he wanted to change his life. It was not healthy. It could have led to bigger problems for him. I met him when he was 16, as a sophomore. The main thing when we first met Shemaj had nothing to do with football. We just wanted him to lose weight.

“It’s a testament to Shemaj’s work ethic. When I spoke to these major college coaches, they were amazed how much Shemaj got himself into shape. They all told me that is the kind of kid that they want. Shemaj is an inspiration.”

Keisha Henry gets emotional talking about her son. She saw Shemaj begin morning workout routines including pushups and situps, and ladder drills in the backyard.

“I am an overprotective mother and people would tell me, ‘Do you see the size of him? He’s not the one who would be hurt playing football. He’s the one who would be doing the hurting,’ but I just remembered seeing him hurt when he got hit by the car,” she recalled. “I never wanted to see him hurt again, and I know people get hurt playing football. But I gave in. I don’t mind him playing football.”

Henry’s mother had to buy a whole new wardrobe for him recently. She used to buy 6XL shirts for him, and his waist size was 56 inches when he was 14. His shirt size is now XL, and his waist size is 44.

Shemaj Henry never noticed his weight loss until last spring, when he was down to 390 pounds. He played at 380 last football season, and was down to 350 by this past summer. By August, Henry was at 340, and his new goal is to get to 310.

As the regular season nears its conclusion, Chester is one of two teams, the other being Springfield (Delco), that has won eight games and is undefeated. The Clippers are No. 2 in District 1 Class 5A behind Springfield, and will host Del-Val League rival Penn Wood on Saturday at 11 a.m. at the Chester Athletic Complex.

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The Clippers will be looking to four-peat as Del-Val champs, and stand a good chance of being the first team in school history to have an undefeated regular season. Senior quarterback Jalen Harris, with Henry protecting his blind side, just became the first quarterback in Delaware County history to throw 100 career touchdown passes.

This summer, Shemaj accomplished a bit of personal history. His mother got a call from her family at Six Flags.

Shemaj Henry got on his first roller-coaster ride — Superman: Ride of Steel.

“I feel like a whole new person, but I still have problems fitting in a car, because I’m so tall and I’m not running around with my shirt off flexing,” he said. “I run up steps now. I don’t need the railing anymore. I don’t need to get jammed into a roller-coaster ride. I fit. But hey, maybe that can be my new nickname, the ‘Big Roller Coaster.’”