Henson says the media’s time demands don’t bother him much, but the media’s criticism can sting a bit. He seems to discount the fans who occasionally crowd radio shows to vilify him, proof he is most concerned with the pressure from within.
“I’ve been blessed that I don’t have a lot of criticism, where a lot of people do,” he says. “I might handle it a little bit differently if that were the case.”
The media have been particularly interested in one story that broke today: Senior center Shelly Clark was charged Sunday with driving on a suspended license. It is the second such incident for Clark, and the latest in his growing list of legal problems.
The pressure on Henson to deal with the media and the wayward player clearly compound each other. He has to answer some uncomfortable questions, and then discipline a student-athlete as an audience looks on.
“Here we are preparing for a game and a guy goes out driving without a license,” a frustrated Henson says at 9:15 a.m., after he learns about the incident from a local reporter who called with questions. “In the coaching profession at this level, a lot of it hinges on other people, something you can’t control.”
On Sunday, before Clark’s arrest, Henson even had talked in general terms about this sort of pressure on college coaches.
“(Administrators and faculty) want the ideal situation,” he said. “They want to take straight `A’ students, they want to have all of them graduate, they never want to see a problem with any athlete. They want everything, win ballgames, fill the arenas.”
Before the telephone call about Clark, Henson had just finished watching more film on Penn State. He was preparing to dissect his team’s game against Wisconsin.
But first, Henson calls over to the sports information office and tells the basketball spokesman to scratch Clark from Wednesday’s starting lineup. Henson has made the decision quickly, explaining only that it will be a judge’s job to punish Clark further.
At 9:30, Henson begins to watch the tape of Saturday’s Illinois-Wisconsin game. Assistant coaches Mark Bial and Dick Nagy join Henson for the session.
They watch every possession, offensive and defensive, as many as four times. The remote control is flying, as are the critiques.
Every so often, Henson will stop the tape and scribble down a thought to stress at practice this afternoon. Those notes gather in a small pile, not far from Bial’s pile of Penn State plays.
“Here he comes,” Henson says, somewhat irritated, as one Illini player runs smack into a pick. “He didn’t get over like he’s supposed to. . . . There’s no way they should have gotten that ball. . . . We could have had the dunk all night long. . . . Doesn’t he know that you don’t front a guy out there? . . . He had to pass it in there quicker. . . .”
And so on, Henson’s right hand wrapped loosely around the remote control and resting comfortably on his knee. He sips from an almost ever-present cup of coffee.
After the teleconference and lunch, Henson returns to Assembly Hall for his team’s first practice of the week. Armed with eight pages of Penn State tendencies and a strategy to double-team center John Amaechi, among the Big 10’s best, he walks out of his office and down to the court.
He has decided that Clark will be off-limits to the media today, but accommodates each of the reporters himself. Afterward, practice lasts until 4:30 p.m.
Tonight, Henson has his weekly radio show at a local restaurant. He is considered a hero to many of the people who come in for dinner, and he signs several autographs during commercial breaks.
But Henson also understands that microphones follow winners.
Tuesday: Other jobs
Lou Henson is not just a tactician, sliding imaginary pieces over imaginary courts. He also must be a motivator, knowing when to yell at live athletes who don’t execute the plays.
And, at times, he must be a cooing salesman-pitching Illinois to recruits like a builder hawking new homes. Illinois, after all, has several fine attributes worth noting: Assembly Hall, academics, national television exposure.
On this day, Henson will do a little yelling and a little selling.
After practice this afternoon, about 4 o’clock, the team gathers in a small meeting room near Henson’s office. It has a big-screen television, suitable for showing clips of last Saturday’s defeat at Wisconsin-in which Illinois started sluggishly.
Henson stands off to the television’s right, his arms folded. The players sit at circular tables, so several have to turn their chairs toward the set.
“I told you we’d lose five games by putting hands on people,” Henson says, exasperated after a dumb foul. “We’ve lost three or four, and we’ll lose more. I don’t know how to get you guys to stop.”
Over and over, Henson tells an administrative assistant to run the tape back. He pulls one nearby player out of a chair, and uses him to show proper defensive technique.
“Until you encouraged them,” he tells the team in a resigned tone, “they didn’t play that well. But they thought they had an easy one, and they went ahead and beat you.”
And to end the session, his voice sliding into a mutter: “I don’t think we’ll watch anymore. I don’t think you want to watch anymore.”
Later, Henson explains his philosophy.
“If I exert pressure on our guys, the right kind, every day in practice and all through the fall, don’t you think they’re going to be better equipped to handle it when they show up for the ballgame?” he says. “. . . You get after them, you stick the needle in.”
Even so, Henson admits that players will make mistakes. It took him “a long time” to achieve this realization, however, and the poor play can still be stressful.
“Here’s what bothers me a lot: We go through and put in all this time and we’ve pretty well figured out the best way to play a team, and then (the athletes) don’t do what you want,” he says. “That’s enough to drive you over the cliff.”
Alas, coaches need players-and Henson spends the remainder of his day trying to get some. He meets in his office at 5 p.m. with assistants Dick Nagy and Jimmy Collins, who are primarily responsible for recruiting.
Of one recruit, who lists Illinois among his six choices, Henson says: “Well, if all the other people are recruiting him, I think we need to go and see him. We’ve been in on this kid for a month. We need to see him play. Otherwise, we won’t have a chance.”
One way that Illinois can show interest in a recruit is with a phone call from the head coach. As the recruiting meeting breaks up after about 15 minutes, Henson promises to make some calls from home tonight.
He phones one high school coach at halftime of the Purdue-Michigan State game, and tries to gauge a particular player’s interests and talents. Henson uses the phone in his “Illini room,” an office at home that is full of memorabilia and decorated entirely in school colors.
“Are there a lot of people recruiting him?” Henson asks. “How good is he? . . . What position can he play?. . . . What’s he averaging? . . . Do you have an idea where he might want to go to school? . . . Do you let people call him?
“I know he’s the type of player, with everybody after him, who we would like to have. I’ll call him tonight, and if there’s a bit of interest, we’ll get after him.”
It turns out that the player is at a college basketball game, so Henson returns to the matchup on television. He calls a different player after the game ends, about 9 p.m.
“I just wanted to call you and show that we’re interested in you,” Henson says. “I know that you have a lot of people after you.”
Henson asks if the player has committed to any school, and is happy to learn that he has not. Then Henson begins to flatter and sell, reciting the player’s best statistics back to him and noting that the Big 10 leads all conferences in attendance.
“We have some good players, but we desperately need a player of your ability,” Henson says. “We are seriously interested in you, and if we can, we’d like to come up and see you play.”
And then the most important question: “Do you think there would be interest in us, enough that we should come up?”
There is.
