From Sunset Acres to a legend in New Mexico

     He lived for a while in our old neighborhood, Sunset Acres; a small kid, two years younger than us, but such a good athlete that we took notice.
     Whatever happened to Billy Henson?

Billy Henson: Retired as teacher, coach and administrator, now
living the good life as an outdoorsman in New Mexico and Louisiana.

     He was good in three sports -- football, basketball and baseball -- and he was on the Oak Terrace Junior High teams. But he never made it to our high school, Woodlawn. After eighth grade, he moved away ... to New Mexico.
     Let's catch up with Billy Don Henson because, well, some people consider him a legend.
     He became a two-way All-State football player in New Mexico (offense and defense), a scholarship player at University of New Mexico.
     But more significantly, the head football coach -- especially in a small town, Animas, N.M., in the southwest corner of the state, near the Mexico border -- with this kind of success:
     • a state-record seven consecutive state championships (1984-90) in Class AA (third-highest class in that state);
     • 69 consecutive victories (1985-90), at the time one of the nation's longest streaks;
     • a 145-32-2 record (.814) in 16 years (four schools) as a head coach;
     • subject of a 1989 Life magazine centerpiece story on his team, program and winning streak written by Gary Smith, later regarded as one of America's most talented sportswriters when he was a star at Sports Illustrated.
     • father/mentor of the most productive passing quarterbacks in state high school football history.
     • A football stadium named for him: in Animas ... Billy Henson Stadium.
     He's 69, retired since 2011 after 40 years of coaching, teaching and administration -- the last eight years as the school superintendent in Hatch Valley, N.M.
      Now an avid quail hunter and fisherman, he has two "new" knees (a double replacement a year ago), and for about six months each year, again a Louisiana resident, at  Toledo Bend.
      And to think, he once played quarterback on the same team with Terry Bradshaw (who was injured), and it is plausible that he might have delayed Joe Ferguson's emergence as the starting QB at Woodlawn. He had that kind of ability. 
     He was a could-have-been, would-have-been Woodlawn Knight, a potential star. Read on.
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     His name came up last week at lunch with an old friend from Sunset Acres. And I at least had a clue.
     Because in the early 1990s, while working at the Florida Times-Union (Jacksonville), I saw a magazine article about the nation's longest high school football winning streaks, and a team near the top (69 wins in a row), I noticed, was coached by ... Billy Henson.
     Could it be?
     A phone call to Animas, N.M., confirmed it was our old Sunset Acres connection. We talked then, and now some 28 years later, made contact again on Facebook. And, yes, he remembered that phone call. 
     Thus the idea for this blog, and the research, and many exchanges for information, photos and clippings.
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     The Sunset Acres Athletic Club got its start, as I recall, in about 1958. Its early teams were not all that successful -- not many "athletes" there in those distinctive bright gold uniforms with black trim.
     But Billy Henson stood out as the QB on 75- and 85-pound football teams, even more so as the point guard and top scorer in basketball, and a potentially good baseball player (third baseman).
     He lived, for a while, on the same street (Amherst) we did, but -- Sunset Acres kids know this division -- on the other (east) side of the canal, the 2700 block.
     We knew him and we were watching for him when he came to the junior high. 
     He was small, and when the coaches at Oak Terrace  passed out 33 football uniforms in the fall of 1961, he did not get one. But watching him in P.E., Coach Leonard Ponder saw ability and -- when someone dropped off the team, opening a spot -- Billy got his uniform.
      Instead of playing for Sunset Acres' 105-pound team, he was with the Oak Terrace Trojans for two years, coached by Ellace Bruce, Ponder and Tommy Powell.
     He was the starting QB on the 1962 eighth-grade team that dominated its only four opponents. He also got playing time (halfback or QB) on the ninth-grade team because Bradshaw -- for the second year in a row -- was sidelined with a broken collarbone, leaving the quarterbacking to either Tommy Spinks, Jimmy Buckner or Henson. 
     While the others went on to be leaders -- in football and other sports -- at Woodlawn, Henson went to New Mexico.
     His parents' divorce was the reason for that. His father, as Billy recalled never having made much money in various jobs in Shreveport, went west at the behest of his sister and brother-in-law and a more lucrative job in the NM mines.
     And in summer 1963, Billy's mother put her son on a trailways bus to join his father. The Oak Terrace Trojans (and Woodlawn Knights)' loss was the Carlsbad Cavemen's gain.
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     Billy Henson as a QB at Woodlawn? Let's speculate.
     In what would have been his sophomore fall (1964), Trey Prather was the Knights' Class AAA All-State QB, with Bradshaw and Spinks as his backups.
     In 1965, Bradshaw with his tremendous right arm and potential, was the starter, but -- honestly -- the Woodlawn coaches were not sure of his steadiness. Henson, as a junior, could have been an option.
     In 1966, after Billy's growing spurt (listed in New Mexico newspaper stories as 6 feet, 188 pounds), he might have challenged Joe Ferguson for the Woodlawn starting QB spot.
     Ferguson was a thin, 160-pound sophomore, with football sense, a strong right arm and potential, but totally unproven in high school ball. On the most talented, physically largest of the seven Woodlawn teams to that point, QB was by far the biggest question mark.
     Henson could have been the answer, at least to open the season. And for a few weeks in the spring of 1966, he was actually attended Woodlawn.
     His grandmother, his father's mother, was still in Shreveport, but sickly and having a tough time after Billy's grandfather died. So Billy's father and Billy returned to town, helped sell her place and move her to New Mexico. 
     Meanwhile, Billy attended Woodlawn.
     "Coach [Lee] Hedges was kind enough to let me suit out for spring drills," he recalled. "It was before he left for Louisiana Tech and Coach [A.L.] Williams became head coach. I told them that I probably wouldn't be in school until the end of the school year, but they let me train with them anyway. 
     "It really helped me get to another level as an athlete in New Mexico as they didn't allow spring ball out here."
      And he remembers meeting Ferguson that spring: "He was so impressive even as a [freshman] player."
     So Ferguson stepped in with a veteran team, the foundation of which was the talented Oak Terrace players from that unbeaten 1962 team that Henson quarterbacked. 
     Joe fit in nicely; a powerful running game and superb defense keyed the first undefeated regular season in Woodlawn history, and only an injury-bad-luck week led to a playoff loss and spoiled state championship hopes.
      Even if Henson had not played QB, it is likely he would have fit somewhere in the loaded Woodlawn lineup; the likely spot -- my opinion -- cornerback.

All-State player, offense and defense,
at Carlsbad High in 1966

      At Carlsbad High, he joined one of New Mexico's top high school programs and "it was a different approach to football. They didn't throw the ball and if you punted, you were a coward."
      Because "I was more athletic and bigger than the kids out here," he was moved to running back and middle linebacker.
      And he was the team's best player. The result: All-State at running back, All-State as a middle linebacker (facts confirmed by newspaper clippings).
      On the first play of that season, he ran an end sweep 81 yards for a touchdown. He did the Cavemen's placekicking, too, and was chosen for the New Mexico high school all-star game.
      And he was recruited by, and signed a scholarship with, the New Mexico Lobos. He said Hedges, then at Tech, offered him "a full ride ... because he knew of me, but I thought it best to stay close to my family."
      An ankle injury, first reported as sprained but actually broken, kept him out of the all-star game and out of the UNM freshman team's four-game schedule (Division I freshmen were not eligible for varsity then). 
      A coaching change after that season, and what he recalls as a brutally tough spring practice under the new head coach, and two hurting knees helped him decide to end his playing career. 
      But graduation and a coaching career awaited.
      "I watched coaches, and I studied what they were doing, how they were teaching," he said. "What I learned most was what not to do."
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     His coaching days began as a graduate assistant (1972-73) at Eastern New Mexico University. He had taken an interest in the growing emphasis then on strength programs and helped develop one at ENMU.
      His first regular teaching/coaching job was at Clayton, N.M., in the fall of 1974; he would return there two decades later. Then through a New Mexico high school coaching legend, he moved to Alice High deep in south Texas. As defensive ends coach there, he again helped build a strength program.
     The Alice team made the Texas top-class state semifinals his first year and, after another good season, his road back to New Mexico was one year as defensive coordinator at Roswell. 
     Then came his first head coaching job in Capitan, N.M., and by the second year his team played in a state- championship game and lost 6-0.
     The school superintendent who hired him in Capitan had moved to Animas. Thus, he hired him again for a job that looked like a huge challenge.
     Billy was familiar with Animas because it had been an opponent for Capitan.
     "Although we beat Animas solidly," he recalled, "I recognized that they had plenty of kids that underachieved."
     It turned out to be a magical place.
     It was a very rural setting -- a truly middle-of-nowhere place. For years, the school had drawn kids with farming and ranching backgrounds, many from even more rural closeby areas. Enrollment was only 50-to-60 students.
      Then, a new nearby copper-smelter plan led to a population growth, and a football program was started in 1976.
      The new coach in 1981 took the challenge and put together the right mix.
       "We never had a football tradition," Henson said near the end of his Animas reign in a story that labeled him "the architect, "but we had an environment because the kids were hungry to do something."
      Enrollment was up to 170 students, and Henson had a "no-cut" policy for his team, which usually numbered about 40. Still, the Panthers usually faced great odds.
       After a 1-6-1 record his first season, there was huge  improvement the next year -- an 11-1 record and the state semifinals. By 1984 came the first of the seven state titles.

As the head coach at Animas, N.M., he was the master builder -- and
sevens years in a row state championship coach.

       From an almost two-page Albuquerque Journal spread on the Animas program in August 1988: "Almost immediately after taking the job in 1981, Henson built a homemade fieldhouse out of a concession stand that adjoins the football field. First came a weight room, then an office, then a locker room (complete with artificial turf floor) and finally, showers."
       More from that story: "The new coach absolutely refused to pit new against old, native against newcomer. And eight years later, Animas' kids play as if they'd been together since birth."
       "We've got a mix," says wingback Derek Hill. "We've got cowboys and Hispanics, and a lot of people in between. But most of the kids on this football team, I don't think there are two guys who don't get along. We're so small we have to. We're all together, and that's the key."
     With enough of a passing game and a physical, disciplined style, the emerald green-uniformed Panthers began pounding opponents. 
     For example, in three-plus seasons (1985-early 1988), Animas outscored opponents 1,400-173. 
     Scheduling games, even against bigger New Mexico schools, became a challenge. Thus, one game in -- yes -- Honolulu; another against a team in Mexico. 
      Also a challenge: The routine long road trips.
      Henson, also the team bus driver, tells of away-game trips that ended with him pulling the bus into the school parking lot at 4 a.m. One playoff season, the final three games -- quarterfinals, semifinals and title game -- were bus trips of 800, 800 and 1,200 miles.
        "To this day I believe our kids overcame so much more," he said. "... The problem was that some of the kids still had an hour to get in their cars and drive to get home. I just prayed them made it home, but they were raised that way and they were so mentally tough compared to other kids then, and so much more than kids today.
     "... Gary Smith (in Life) wrote such flattering things, [but] he did not even begin to scratch the surface of what my players had to overcome.
    "But we did all of it together. I feel so satisfied to have been part of it. But I can vouch that those kids were raised hard and I was fortunate to show up at the right time."
     With all the success came such recognition: a tribute on CNN, a front page (1A) story in The Dallas Morning News, a feature in USA Today.
     And a contract for a movie in 1989, a visit by possible producers to Animas. That did not develop. Instead the feature subject became the powerful Odessa (Texas) Permian program and the book and movie Friday Night Lights.
     For all that, Henson says his starting coaching salary in Animas was $1,500 a year. His final coaching salary was $1,500 a year. Meanwhile, all four of the Henson children were born in that time.
      "I am not blaming the community," he said, "but they really had no tax base to do better."
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      The tributes, and growing legend, kept coming. Notably in 1987 Animas renamed its football stadium for him.
      From the 1988 Albuquerque Journal feature: "Henson, a driven but sensitive man who resides in a yellow home 25 yards from the stadium, remains the magnet around which kids gather."
     From a 1992 Journal column: "Notable for his humble reserve, Henson's special gift as a coach, one trumpeted by his former players and ex-bosses alike, was his singular ability to make things work."
     From a 1990 Dallas Morning News story: "Henson is admired here for his even temper, his ability to coax the best out of the teenagers. He treats the boys with respect, people say, calling them 'men' and never criticizing them publicly."
      Said one of his players, an offensive guard, in a 2010 story: "Wow. It was amazing to be part of something like that."
      Gary Lunsford, who lives in Vanderwegen, N.M., is a longtime friend who coached with Billy (at Roswell) and against him, and as a college student and wide receiver, benefitted from Henson's practice passes one summer.
     "I don't believe I have ever seen a football team that bought into their game as good as Billy Henson's did," Lunsford said, recalling a one-sided coaching loss against Animas.
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     The winning streak, from a loss in the last regular-season game in 1984, ended in the eighth game of the 1990 season -- so five "perfect" seasons in a row -- with a 9-8 loss at Animas' biggest district rival, Lordsburg. To that point, the Panthers had outscored opponents 286-28.
      Animas fell three games short of tying the then-national record for consecutive victories.
      But soon came the seventh consecutive state title ... and sweet revenge. The final opponent was -- karma -- Lordsburg. Animas won a rout, 36-0; Lordsburg had three first downs in the game.
      And then Henson's time in Animas was done. His final record there: 127-28-2 (.815). Without the first year: 126-22-1 (.849).
      Having once accepted another coaching job but changing his mind, he made it official after a change in administrators and limits put on his strength-training program. 
      He took over a program at Silver City that had lost 26 consecutive games, but in one year went from winless to a 6-4 record. Still, he felt the politics in town led to resentment -- and he moved on, and out of coaching. 
       Bill Coker was the Animas principal during Henson's glory years there and then, as a school superintendent, hired him as an elementary school principal at Tucumcari.
       The Albuquerque Journal story on his hiring for that job quoted Coker: "To relate to kids, you've got to be honest, and you've got to build their self-esteem. Billy commands that type of self-respect and esteem. Kids pick up on that and respond very positively.
     "He is just one of the best educators I've ever seen at creating a positive self-image."

Billy Henson: From coach to
 administrator to retirement

       Two years later (1994), it was back to coaching -- head coach at Clayton. In two seasons, his teams made the state quarterfinals and semifinals, and then he left coaching for good. 
     He became a school superintendent, the final eight years at Hatch, N.M.
      And it was there that another Henson became a big football name -- son Brett.
     "I took all those proven drills that my Oak Terrace coaches used to train me with," Billy said, "and passed them on to all my quarterbacks and my son."
     Brett, playing for Hatch Valley, led two state championship teams while setting all the individual passing records in New Mexico. His statistics -- 4,914 yards and 70 TDs in 2003; 4,604 yards and 64 TDs in 2004; 12,124 yards and 166 TDs in his three-year career -- make even Ferguson's 1966-68 numbers look small. Another eye-popper: nine TD passes in one game.
    Brett is listed among the all-time leading passers in the national high school record book.
    "So even though I never got the chance to play quarterback again," Billy said, "I guess I passed it all on to my players in Animas and to my son. And I am so thankful that I experienced it all and how it turned out."

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      "I know it sounds like I moved around a lot in my career," he says, "but at least I can say the school people I knew hired me back for a second time and even offered me jobs for the third. I moved in my career for professional advancement ... 
     "Besides, my 'growing up life' prepared me for such a transit lifestyle," he said, laughing.
     That lifestyle changed with his retirement -- a family split and a move away from society.
    After 24 years of marriage and four children (three daughters and Brett), when their youngest child graduated, "my wife and I went our separate ways. But in a civil way; we all get together on holidays.
      "After living such a public life," he said, "I retreated to the Sacramento Mountains in southern New Mexico. I built my own cabin by myself, then went back to Louisiana and built a fishing camp at Toledo Bend. 

The Henson transport: New Mexico to
Louisiana, and back every six months.

     "I spend January to June in Louisiana, June until January in New Mexico. My kids come and share my camps with me."
      On the trips, he loads up his Dodge Ram truck with a camper, and pulls a trailer with a four-wheel drive vehicle, and his faithful dog companion.
      He loves quail hunting with friends and ex-players, and he is able to move much better now after the knee replacements.
      At Toledo Bend -- where his camp is near the popular Solan's Camp (at the end of state highway 482, mailing address Noble, but also close to Zwolle) -- he's been known to catch monster catfish (he has the pictures and a video to prove it).
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     "I lose sleep thinking it would have been me to inherit the job instead of Joe Ferguson to lead the Knights to a championship," Billy said. "I knew I had the ability, but then life happened.
     "I guess I was maybe the missing Knight, but they did great without me, for sure."
     The Knights did. So did Bradshaw and Ferguson -- both legendary players and individuals.
      That also applies to Billy Don Henson, the transplanted Sunset Acres kid in New Mexico.