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Honors for Henson

By Roy Waters | The News Herald

Published: May 19, 2009

Glen Alpine native Clay Henson continues to pile up honors at Guilford College.
This spring, the basketball player was named the school's male athlete of the year to go along with his many other athletic and academic awards.
The former Freedom High star led his team to a 26-6 record and a third-place finish in NCAA Division III basketball.
Henson led the team in scoring with 18.8 points per game and set school records in three-point shots for the season with 95. He has 189 three pointers for his career.
He notched 10, 20-point games and became the 28th player in Guilford history to tally 1,000 points in a career. Henson was named to the all-conference, all-region and all-district teams.
Next season, he will be a senior at the Greensboro school.

Inside baseball
The professional sport with the most job opportunities is baseball, yet many young people find it boring.
It's true, football and basketball have more sustained action, but baseball has more going on than meets the eye.
On every pitch, the defense must decide where to position itself. The defense must expect where the ball is going to be hit. Then, they assume the stance that's basic to almost every sport; a slight bend from the waist and a flex of the knees with weight slightly forward.
This enables them to be ready for a move in any direction. Even golfers — when the player wants to remain more anchored — start from this most basic of all sports positions.
The defense in baseball has a lot of territory to cover and when there's a hard-hit ball, players must react as quick as possible. The player that expects every ball to be hit toward him will not be bored.
As the game progresses and the defense sees more of the batters, this positioning is all the more critical. Players who see and understand this aspect of sports make the best coaches.
One of my favorite times in sports is watching game highlights on ESPN's SportsCenter. Some of the greatest and most athletic plays are found in baseball. Already this season, I've seen several outfielders reach over the fence after a long run and catch what would've been home runs.
Center fielders have more territory to cover than anyone and I personally enjoyed that position most of all.
New York Yankee Joe DiMaggio was the first truly great player at the position. I read last week that his younger brother, Dom, passed away at age 92. He was also a great center fielder, but he played for the Boston Red Sox.
I believe they were a part of the only family that had three brothers in the Major Leagues at the same time. The other brother, Vince, was an outfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.
A correction to last week's column: I meant to say I've never heard of an athlete playing six sports until Freedom High's Ali Ford. Very few people play four sports in high school.

Roy Waters is a sports columnist for The News Herald. Waters was baseball and basketball coach at Salem High School from 1955-1966, where his teams won 18 championships. In 2007, he was inducted into the Burke County Sports Hall of Fame.