Loran Smith: Billy Henderson's life in coaching 'well spent'
The contributions by high school coaches over the years to our communities have been monumental and in some cases everlasting. Coaches traditionally were men and women with a bent for helping kids --working to show them how to master a sport, but also to provide leadership which underscored scholarship and citizenship.
It was a man named DeYampert who coached Erk Russell in high school in Birmingham. Erk wrote in his high school annual that it was his ambition to "succeed Mr. DeYampert."
Any sports fan knows about the rest of the story. Erk became the beloved defensive coordinator at Georgia and subsequently the head coach at Georgia Southern, where he brought about the same emotional rush. All along, Erk followed the same basic principles he learned in his high school years. Play hard, play by the rules and give of yourself to the team.
Those principles work at every level of competition. Leadership and inspiration do more in high school. Kids developing physically can benefit from intangibles which allows them to gain an advantage.
High school coaches have often maintained grocery bills beyond enough to feed their families. Someone was always pulling up a chair at mealtime. There was always a player who was in need of a good meal. Then there were those who were passing through town who found it convenient to come visiting at the dinner hour.
To "come out" for football, there were farm boys who could only participate if the coach took them home after practice. Hand-me-downs went to kids who really needed such--from shoes to sweaters to shirts one size too small.
Billy Henderson, who went to that great gridiron in the sky last week, was one of those coaches who functioned in that element. In Billy's day, coaches were always accompanied by austerity. Money, however, was not a priority. You wanted to take care of your family, but it was the emotional rewards that were the conduit to fulfillment in the profession.
Seeing a kid segue from awkwardness to fluidity, learning how to compete and succeed at sport is an enduring emotional reward for coaches. Seeing a collection of kids submit to the greater goals of the team by subordinating their personal objectives is something a coach savors all his days.
Coaches, like Billy Henderson, will all tell you that one must have the best athletes to win the big prize, but I've never known a coach who did not harbor affection for the kid and the team which succeeded with heart.
Billy was a gifted athlete who was familiar with the glory of the best of times at Georgia, the Trippi years, after World War II. Billy was blessed with speed-a-foot and quickness. He was an adroit and canny athlete with gifts that made him excel, in particular, at football and baseball. He was a lettermen on the Bulldog teams of '46, '47, '48, '49 which meant that he was a member of two SEC championship teams.
Not sure about the rules in those years, but college football players were allowed to play minor league baseball. Billy and his Bulldog teammate Chub Jenkins played Class D baseball for my hometown of Wrightsville. Billy was a base-stealing marvel. I remember the old timers saying that people came to the ballpark just to see Billy steal bases. He was the fastest athlete to perform in Wrightsville before Al Chamlee (who played for Paul Dietzel at L.S.U.) and Herschel Walker.
Billy was an "Old Man River" type who seemed ageless for the longest time. In my mind's eye, I can see him, his crew cut suggesting that he would never grow old, jogging down Milledge Avenue in the middle of the day.
He won state championships, he was blessed with promotional genius (most notably founding the Athens Hall of Fame), and he preached selflessness and goodwill to his kids. He always did right by them, which made him and his times memorable for so many. His lifetime in coaching was well spent.
What: Celebration of Life
When: 2 p.m. Feb. 25
Where: The Classic Center Theatre
In lieu of flowers, donations can be made to It Can Be Done Inc. through Athens First Bank & Trust, P.O. Box 1747, Athens Ga., 30603