Randy Peterson
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March 30, 2025
News, notes and anecdotes about a coach whose career path eventually leads directly to Big Ten Country.
Thanks to Drake and its hiring wizard, Brian Hardin, we now know the identity of a future Big Ten Conference men’s basketball coach. I mean, the last three coaches that worked for the department Hardin oversees, are now at Indiana, Minnesota and Iowa.
That’s what came to mind while thinking about Hardin’s most recent hire, Eric Henderson. The former South Dakota State coach has strong roots at the mid-major level and within the state of Iowa – and that’s significant.
Drake’s women’s coach, Allison Pohlman, is from Wellsburg. Iowa State women’s coach, Bill Fennelly, is from Davenport. Iowa’s Ben McCollum was born in Iowa City (and grew up in Storm Lake). Hawkeye women’s coach Jan Jensen, is a former Elk Horn-Kimballton star. At Northern Iowa, women’s coach Tanya Warren graduated from Des Moines Lincoln, and men’s coach Ben Jacobson has been at the school so long, that he’s become one of us. Ditto Iowa State’s T.J. Otzelberger.
Did Hardin knock it out of the park again? It could be, but let’s wait before calling him the next Aaron Judge. His new men’s basketball coach, however, certainly has a home run pedigree, having worked for a couple coaches who are in the midst of great major-college careers -- for Otzelberger at South Dakota State, and for Creighton’s Greg McDermott (a proud native of Cascade, Iowa).
Talk about working your way up. Hendo, as he’s called, is the definition of grassroots. His resume includes:
** Star player at Maquoketa Valley High School
** Coaching girls’ high school basketball in Nebraska, and also coaching high school ball in Wisconsin.
** Being a principal and an athletics director.
** Basketball graduate manager at Iowa State.
** Assistant coach at Wayne State.
** Starring as a player at Wayne State.
And with that, I couldn’t resist:
Hendo, do you have stories about your first college experience – as a player for McDermott? I have to know.
“Hedged his bushes in Wayne America when I was a player for him,” Henderson told me over the weekend.
There’s more:
“I cut the extension cord with the hedger, in the process,” he added. “I was scared to tell him.”
And what’d McDermott say about that?
“I’m just glad he didn’t electrocute himself,” McDermott told me Sunday. “I couldn’t have survived without him.”
The Henderson Family and extended family – which now includes Drake and it’s hiring genus of an athletics director – are thankful Henderson is still around to tell that story, too. Shoot, Hendo is just thankful for all his hard-working, do-whatever-it-takes background mentors.
“I pinch myself all the time, for how much Coach McDermott and T.J. have done for me,” he said at an NCAA Tournament last year in Omaha that included a Hendo-T.J. first-round matchup. “And now I'm playing where Coach McDermott plays every one of his home games (in Omana) -- and I get to coach against T.J. I mean, really?
“Life doesn't get any better than this.”
(Award-winning columnist Randy Peterson can be, and has been, reached at randypete4846@gmail.com or at any Okoboji-area beverage/food establishment between the hours of open and close.)