BETTER THAN OKAY
The kid from Okay did OK
From humble beginnings in Okay, former coach Lou Henson is going into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame
Lou Henson grew up wanting to play basketball at Oklahoma A&M for Henry Iba. That was standard for kids of the 1940s.
Henson had a jumpshot, a rare trait in the first half of the century, and a love for the game, even defense. But Iba didn't recruit Henson. Too many players from which to choose in those Stillwater salad days, so Henson had to stay on his outback course.
Okay High School. Connors Junior College. New Mexico State University.
It turned out just fine Henson. Monday night, he goes into the Oklahoma Sports Hall of Fame as one of college basketball's greatest coaching winners. Henson is the all-time victories leader at two basketball schools, New Mexico State and
Illinois, and he coached each to a Final Four.
“Really quite an honor,” said Henson, now 87 and retired in Las Cruces, New
Mexico.
Henson is a 1951 graduate of Okay. The town sits nine miles north of Muskogee, in Wagoner County. Okay's
1950 population was 427; today, Okay's residents number in the 600s.
But in that 1951 graduating class of 13, three received doctorate degrees and another is in the College Basketball Hall of Fame.
“Pretty good little class I'd say,” said Wesley Jarman, one of those Ph.D.'s and the former superintendent of the massive Union School District in Tulsa.
Jarman and Henson have been friends since fourth grade, before Pearl Harbor. Both were farm kids.
“Pretty modest means, you might say, but everybody was about in the same boat, so nobody paid any attention to that,” Jarman said.
Jarman said Henson was a quiet, accommodating kid who loved and studied basketball.
The jumpshot was cuttingedge basketball in the 1940s but found its way to Okay.
“Not many people know much about Okay,” Henson said. “But those were the days. You did nothing but play basketball or baseball. Of course, I started young, playing basketball, and continued it. It was a great sport for me.”
Iba didn't call, so Henson went to Connors, in nearby Warner. Jarman went along and became athletic trainer. Their second year, Presley Askew, recently fired at Arkansas, became the Connors coach and then was hired away by New Mexico State. Askew took Henson and Jarman with him.
Henson's 66-year association with New Mexico State was born. He played for the Aggies for two seasons, got bachelor's and master's degrees, then became a coach at Las Cruces High School, winning state championships in 1959, 1960 and 1961.
Henson moved onto Hardin-Simmons University in 1962, integrating the team, and returned to his alma mater four years later. By 1970, New Mexico State was in the Final Four, losing to UCLA 93-77 in the semifinals and beating St. Bonaventure 79-73 in the third-place game.
Remarkably, that New
Mexico State team had three future NBA players, and half a century later, Henson still tells stories of their recruitment.
Five-foot-eight point guard Charlie Criss, out of Yonkers, New York. “If you're going to measure him, just go ahead and leave,” Criss' high school coach told Henson. Henson didn't measure Criss, who went on to play 418 NBA games as one of basketball's original mighty mites.
Sharpshooter Jimmy Collins, out of Syracuse, New York. The father of a New Mexico State assistant coach lived in Syracuse and kept
wanting Henson to recruit Collins. Finally, a scholarship came open.
Henson gave it to Collins, who boarded a bus in Syracuse and rode three days to Las Cruces to meet the coach with an Okie drawl. Collins made all-American and spent two years with the Chicago Bulls.
Center Sam Lacey, who went unrecruited out of Indianola, Mississippi. But Henson had a lot of contacts from his Hardin-Simmons integration days, and a Deep South source alerted him to the 6-7 skinny kid. Lacey grew into 6-9, 240 pounds; in 1970, he averaged 16 points and 18 rebounds in five NCAA Tournament games, then averaged over 30 minutes in more than 1,000 NBA games.
“New Mexico State means a lot to me,” Henson said. He and his wife, Mary, started their married life there. All four of their children were born there. Both Lou and Mary Henson have been awarded honorary doctorates from New Mexico State, meaning that Okay class of 13 is up to four Ph.D.'s.
Henson moved onto Illinois, where the Illini went 423-224 in Henson's 21 seasons and made the 1989 Final Four.
Then Henson returned to New Mexico State and coached the Aggies for eight more seasons, going 135-86.
Jarman has followed Henson's career closely and visited him often. Jarman met a Michigan coach before an Illini-Wolverine game one year, and the Michigan coach mentioned that he never had heard Henson cuss a player.
“You're not going to,” Jarman said he told the coach. “We grew up not talking like that. People who coached us were respectful to us, and that's the way we've always been.”
Quite a ride for the kid from Okay.
Berry Tramel: Berry can be reached at 405-760-8080 or at btramel@oklahoman.com. He can be heard Monday through Friday from 4:40-5:20 p.m. on The Sports Animal radio network, including FM-98.1. You can also view his personality page at newsok.com/berrytramel.