Area defensive backs who found themselves terrorized by the high school version of John Henderson may have had a shot at covering the former Pearl-Cohn standout this week.
Temporarily bound to a wheelchair because of some health issues, Henderson was one of five recognized at a Tuesday luncheon as new inductees to the Metro Nashville Public Schools Sports Hall of Fame.
Also inducted were Joe Allen, who coached boys basketball, tennis and volleyball over a lengthy career at Donelson and McGavock; Preston Brown, a football and track standout at Maplewood; Mike Jackson, an honorable mention boys basketball all-American at Stratford; and Frank Pillow Jr., a football standout and track all-American at Whites Creek.
Henderson was a two-time all-Southeastern Conference and all-America selection and was the 2000 Outland Trophy winner while playing at Tennessee, and went on to be picked by the Jacksonville Jaguars with the ninth overall selection in the 2002 NFL Draft. He went on to play 10 seasons – eight with the Jaguars and two more with the Oakland Raiders – before retiring at the end of the 2011 season.
But at Pearl-Cohn, Henderson was a 6-6, 270-pound man-child who also starred on the hardwood and added insult to injury when the Firebirds split him out wide on two-point conversion attempts.
“We probably converted 75 or 80 percent of those, which was a plus for us,” said Maurice Fitzgerald, who coached Pearl-Cohn to back-to-back state titles in 1996 and ’97, Henderson’s junior and senior seasons. “We’d just put him out there at wide receiver against those little DBs.”
“I caught a lot of those,” said Henderson, in addition to his 82 receptions for 1,030 yards and 20 touchdowns in his last two years. “Coach already knew – just lob it up.
“I never left the game of basketball.”
As he arrived at Pearl-Cohn, basketball was where Henderson was expected to make his mark. A highly touted hardwood player coming out of St. Pius and the AAU ranks (where Fitzgerald was one of his coaches), his reputation left him trapped between the two sports for the early stages of his high school career.
“Everybody was thinking he was going to be the next coming of Shaquille O’Neal,” Fitzgerald said. “They called him ‘Baby Shaq’. We were pretty successful in AAU ball, nationally ranked. We wore purple and gold uniforms (like the Los Angeles Lakers). He shaved his head. Everybody told him, ‘you must be crazy playing football’.
“But I knew for his size and speed and all that athletic ability, it was just a matter of time before he’d do exactly what he did. When you put all that together, you’re going to be pretty successful. He actually quit football the summer between his 9th– and 10th-grade year, but a couple of weeks before the season started, he came back, and the rest is history.”
Henderson’s offensive statistics pale in comparison to his defensive productivity on the Firebirds’ title teams. In two seasons, he posted 295 total tackles and 17 sacks.
“That was a crazy time. I was going back and forth, trying to decide what I wanted to play,” he recalled. “I sat down and listed the pros of each one. But I wanted to hit. I loved the contact.
“I could have played college (basketball). I think I could have played pro. But I made the right choice. I put everything into football, and I got to Tennessee and they taught me how to stay low and use my hands, and it was just fundamental techniques from there.”
Slowed by a stress fracture in his right leg and gout in his right foot, Henderson expects to be up and around soon and establishing a charitable foundation in Jacksonville, where he has made his home.
“I’m excited about it,” he said. “I’m collaborating with (former NBA player) Ruben Patterson on it, and just doing what Coach Fitzgerald got us doing. The things he’s taught me, I’m taking it down there. It’s much needed.”
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