Ex-Glass coach Bo Henson gets his reward

By Darrell Laurant

Published: October 19, 2008

For Bo Henson, it must have been like attending his own funeral — except that he left the James River Conference Center on Oct. 11 feeling more alive than ever.

“I was just overwhelmed,” Henson said later. “It was the greatest night of my life.”

Nearly 300 people showed up to participate in a tribute to Henson, who coached football at E.C. Glass High School from 1978 to 1997. Ex-players came from as far away as Texas and Alaska and ran the gamut of age, race and income. A few of them (like Ruben Brown and Mickey Fitzgerald) had made it to the NFL, some had spent most of their careers on Henson’s bench. On this Saturday night, it didn’t matter.

Nor did it matter anymore, co-organizer Charlie White took pains to point out, that Henson’s career at Glass had ended not with a retirement party, but with a fax. After eight conference titles and a state championship in 1988, Henson was let go when the team had to forfeit three victories in 1997 for using an ineligible player. The move was announced in a terse fax to media outlets.

Shortly thereafter, Henson said Glass principal Susan Morrison had told him the Hilltoppers needed “more white faces on the team and in the stands,” a charge Morrison — who retired earlier this year — vehemently denied.

“It tore the school apart, and tore the community apart,” said White, an undersized center on the state title team, “but that’s all in the past. I want to emphasize that the fact that Susan Morrison just retired had nothing to do with our planning for this. This was intended to be a unifying force.”

For his part, Henson thought he was attending a banquet celebrating the 20th anniversary of that 1988 championship. His wife, Helen, successfully hid from him the magnitude of the looming tribute.

“She tried to keep him away from the phone and the computer,” White said, “and it worked.”

Ruben Brown, a massive (6-foot 3-inches, 300 pound) offensive lineman who was All-Pro nine times for the Buffalo Bills and Chicago Bears, was one of the architects of the event. Paul Fitzgerald, Brown’s teammate in 1988 and now an actor/director whose first film was nominated for the top award at the Sundance Film Festival, was another.

When they’re still stalking the sidelines and scribbling on clipboards, football coaches are judged primarily on their won-lost records. Over time, however, the conversation turns to how many hearts and minds they won among those who played for them.

“What stayed with me about Coach Henson,” White said, “is that he displayed an emotion and a passion for his players that you don’t see a lot. He cared very deeply — for the team and for us — and that made us care.

“He wasn’t afraid to kick you in the rear end if he felt like you needed it, but he also wasn’t afraid to show how proud he was of you when you did something well.”

In an e-mail to Lisa Taylor, who was also involved in planning the event, former Glass running back Kim Deane — one of the many speakers at the tribute dinner — wrote: “In all honesty, I didn’t want to speak at all. When Paul (Fitzgerald) first came to me and asked, I told him, ‘Thanks, but no thanks,’ about three times. Then he said, ‘C’mon Kim, I need you to do it for Bo.’ He had me at that point.”

The day I talked to White, a Lynchburg stockbroker, was a day the market fell more than 700 points — perhaps the trader’s equivalent of a 50-0 loss on the football field.

“One of the things I learned from Bo Henson was how to handle the ups and downs of life,” White said. “Maybe I could have learned that from a Spanish teacher, but as it so happened, I learned it from him.”

White played football at William & Mary after leaving Glass, even though he was a bit small for an offensive lineman.

“Coach Henson told them I was good,” he said, “and they believed him.”

On Oct. 11, that affirmative was reversed.

“There weren’t a lot of handshakes,” Henson said. “Mostly hugs.”