Hali Henderson Article (TX)

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http://www.wacotrib.com/sports/content/ ... letes.html

SUPER CENTEX ATHLETES OF THE YEAR: Seasons change, but stars still shine

By Brice Cherry Tribune-Herald staff writer
Sunday, June 26, 2005

Whoever said Texas doesn't have a true change of seasons never told Crawford's Lee Murphy or Clifton's Hali Henderson.

See, for these two young athletes, the seasons blew in and out with such regularity that they couldn't help but sometimes feel a little frazzled.

"I remember when Lee was about 4, we had gone to the first basketball game of the year and we got home real late," said Lee's mother, Christy. "He went into his room and opened his drawers and was just throwing stuff everywhere. I said, 'What are you doing?' And he looked at me and said, 'I got to find my basketball uniform.' We had changed seasons on him and he wasn't aware and it was time to get out the basketball uniform. It's been like that probably forever."

It was no different for Henderson, who skillfully juggled volleyballs and basketballs with a vaulting pole for the Lady Cubs.

"At a smaller school, that's expected," Henderson said. "You play everything. I remember whenever we'd lose in volleyball, the next day, unless it was a weekend, the next day we'd be dribbling a basketball and turning in our (volleyball) stuff. You just have to make that adjustment."

Few athletes bounced from one ball to the next with such jaw-dropping success as Henderson and Murphy. They weren't just prolific, they were productive, and that's why they've been selected as the Tribune-Herald's Super Centex Athletes of the Year for the 2004-05 school year.

Henderson's high school sports season typically ran from August, with the start of volleyball season, to mid-May, and the UIL state track meet. This past year she was the District 12-2A MVP for a Clifton volleyball team that won its 10th straight district championship, then she went on to average 15 points and eight rebounds per game for the Lady Cubs' playoff-bound hoops team. She earned first-team Super Centex recognition in both sports.

And they weren't even her most successful sport. Henderson capped off her senior year in style by winning the Class 2A state title in the pole vault for the third straight spring.

Henderson's vaulting skills have landed her a track scholarship to Texas A&M, which she called "the fulfillment of a dream." (In a strange coincidence, Henderson is currently dating Derek Dumas of Crawford, Murphy's best friend and soon-to-be roommate at A&M.) It's also the continuation of a family tradition, as Hali's father and brothers all vaulted ahead of her.

"We'd all go out and practice and we'd have this training pole that the little middle school boys would use," she said. "I would go out there and grab the pole and they would teach me a thing or two, and it just kind of grew from there. They kept saying, 'She might be good. She might be okay.'"

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