James Woodrow "Skip" Henderson Jr. (born September 27, 1965) is an American former basketball player known for his collegiate career at

Marshall University Marshall University is a public university, public research university in Huntington, West Virginia, United States. It was founded in 1837 and is named after John Marshall, the fourth Chief Justice of the United States, chief justice of the Uni ...

between 1984–85 and 1987–88. Henderson, a 6'2"

point guard The point guard (PG), also called the one or the point, is one of the Basketball positions, five positions in a regulation basketball game. A point guard has perhaps the most specialized role of any position and is usually the shortest player ...

, established himself as one of the premier players to ever play in the

Southern Conference The Southern Conference (SoCon) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) NCAA Division I, Division I. Southern Conference College football, football teams c ...

(SoCon), amassing a conference-record 2,574 points (eventually broken by Davidson's

Stephen Curry Wardell Stephen Curry II ( ; born March 14, 1988) is an American professional basketball player and point guard for the Golden State Warriors of the National Basketball Association (NBA). Nicknamed "Chef Curry", he is widely regarded as the ...

21 years later); this total is second on Marshall's all-time record behind

Jon Elmore Jonathan Elmore (born December 20, 1995) is an American professional basketball player for Manisa Basket of the Basketbol Süper Ligi (BSL). He played college basketball for Marshall. High school Born in Charleston, West Virginia, Elmore average ...

's 2,636 points. Henderson was a four-time first-team All-SoCon selection, and as a

senior Senior (shortened as Sr.) means "the elder" in Latin and is often used as a suffix for the elder of two or more people in the same family with the same given name, usually a parent or grandparent. It may also refer to: * Senior (name), a surname ...

in 1987–88 he was named the SoCon Player of the Year.

Early life

Henderson grew up in

Cartersville, Georgia Cartersville is a city in and the county seat of Bartow County, Georgia, Bartow County, Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia, United States; it is located within the northwest edge of the Atlanta metropolitan area. As of the 2020 United States Census, ...

at a time when that town had "very little crime and very little drugs," according to Bobby Carr, his basketball coach at

Cartersville High School Cartersville High School is a public high school in Cartersville, Georgia, United States. It is a part of the Cartersville City School System. It was established in 1924 and teaches grades 9 to 12. History Cartersville High School opened in 1924. ...

. He described Henderson as an "All-American kid" who was voted as Mr. Cartersville High School by his peers. In high school, Henderson played

quarterback The quarterback (QB) is a position in gridiron football who are members of the offensive side of the ball and mostly line up directly behind the Lineman (football), offensive line. In modern American football, the quarterback is usually consider ...

for the football team, point guard for the basketball team and also played baseball in the spring.

Marshall University

Henderson enrolled at

, then a member of

NCAA Division I NCAA Division I (D-I) is the highest division of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) in the United States, which accepts players globally. D-I schools include the major collegiate athlet ...

, in the fall of 1984 to play for the Thundering Herd men's basketball team. On the court, Henderson was one of the best players in the league for the duration of his four-year career. He led Marshall to three postseason tournaments: the

1985 The year 1985 was designated as the International Youth Year by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 ** The Internet's Domain Name System is created. ** Greenland withdraws from the European Economic Community as a result of a n ...

and

1987 Events January * January 1 – Bolivia reintroduces the Boliviano currency. * January 2 – Chadian–Libyan conflict – Battle of Fada: The Military of Chad, Chadian army destroys a Libyan armoured brigade. * January 3 – Afghan leader ...

NCAA Tournaments as well as the

1988 National Invitation Tournament The 1988 National Invitation Tournament was the 1988 edition of the annual NCAA college basketball competition. Selected teams Below is a list of the 32 teams selected for the tournament.

(NIT). The Thundering Herd were twice SoCon regular season champions (1986–87 and 1987–88) and twice SoCon tournament champions (1984–85 and 1986–87). Henderson led the team in points per game in each of his four seasons, and in his final three seasons he also led them in steals. During his

sophomore In the United States, a sophomore ( or ) is a person in the second year at an educational institution; usually at a secondary school or at the college and university level, but also in other forms of Post-secondary school, post-secondary educatio ...

season in 1985–86, he was Marshall's team leader in assists. He rewrote the school record books, among them is the still-standing records for points in a game (55). His career total stood for 21 years as the SoCon mark until

broke it in 2008–09. Additionally, his 55-point game was played in the quarterfinals of the 1988 Southern Conference tournament against

The Citadel The Citadel Military College of South Carolina (simply known as The Citadel) is a public senior military college in Charleston, South Carolina, United States. Established in 1842, it is the third oldest of the six senior military colleges ...

. This set both the Marshall and conference tournament records simultaneously. He was named the SoCon Player of the Year as a senior.

Troubled post-college life

Off the basketball court, Henderson began to smoke

marijuana Cannabis (), commonly known as marijuana (), weed, pot, and ganja, List of slang names for cannabis, among other names, is a non-chemically uniform psychoactive drug from the ''Cannabis'' plant. Native to Central or South Asia, cannabis has ...

and drink

alcohol Alcohol may refer to: Common uses * Alcohol (chemistry), a class of compounds * Ethanol, one of several alcohols, commonly known as alcohol in everyday life ** Alcohol (drug), intoxicant found in alcoholic beverages ** Alcoholic beverage, an alco ...

. Eventually his addictions grew, and by his senior year he was trying

cocaine Cocaine is a tropane alkaloid and central nervous system stimulant, derived primarily from the leaves of two South American coca plants, ''Erythroxylum coca'' and ''Erythroxylum novogranatense, E. novogranatense'', which are cultivated a ...

and crack. Besides drug use, Henderson made other poor decisions, such as deciding to drop out of Marshall—just two months before he was set to earn his bachelor's degree in Sports Management—in order to play in the

United States Basketball League The United States Basketball League (USBL) was a professional men's spring basketball league. The league was formed in 1985 and ceased operations in 2008. The USBL started in 1985 as one of the first basketball leagues to play a late-spring to ...

for the New Haven Skyhawks. Henderson was then selected third overall by the Charleston Gunners of the

Continental Basketball Association The Continental Basketball Association (CBA), originally known as the Eastern Pennsylvania Basketball League, and later as the Eastern Professional Basketball League and the Eastern Basketball Association, was a men's professional basketball m ...

(CBA) in the 1988 CBA Draft, but two days before the season's opening game, the CBA suspended Henderson for testing positive for cocaine use. This suspension was, ironically, right before the "Say No to Drugs"-themed season opener. Other transgressions outside of basketball led Henderson to numerous run-ins with the law. He pleaded guilty to one count of burglary and four counts of forgery in January 1991, and one count of robbery by intimidation and one count of first-degree forgery in March 1992. On September 24, 2001, Henderson hijacked a car at gunpoint, kidnapped the driver for a brief amount of time, robbed a convenience store for petty cash ($360 in total), and threatened the store clerk with the gun. This night was fueled by drug use. Henderson said that his wife had just died and it was an emotionally turbulent time for him, which is why he got back into drugs. The crimes he committed that evening landed him in prison, and since he was a repeat offender, Henderson was given life without parole. Though a movement to have him released from prison has since been started.

College accolades

;Honors and awards *4× First Team All-SoCon (1985–1988) * SoCon Player of the Year (1988) *Associated Press Honorable Mention All-American (

1988 1988 was a crucial year in the early history of the Internet—it was the year of the first well-known computer virus, the Morris worm, 1988 Internet worm. The first permanent intercontinental Internet link was made between the United State ...

) *3× All- SoCon tournament First Team (1985, 1987–1988) *All-SoCon Tournament Second Team (1986) *SoCon All-Freshmen Team (1985) *SoCon Freshman of the Year (1985) *4× team's scoring leader (1985–1988) *3× team's steals leader (1986–1988) *Team's assists leader (1986) *4× team's field goals made leader (1985–1988) *2× team's three-point field goals made leader (1987–1988) *4× team's free throws made leader (1985–1988) *2× SoCon Tournament champion (1985, 1987) *2× SoCon regular season champion (1987, 1988) ;School records *Points in a game (55),. *Field goals made in a season (291) and career (1,000) *Tied for second-most field goals made in a game (20, with George Stone) *Field goals made in a game in the

Cam Henderson Center The Cam Henderson Center is the primary indoor athletics complex at Marshall University in Huntington, West Virginia, USA.John Taft) ;Conference records *Held all-time Southern Conference career scoring record from 1988 until 2009 *SoCon Tournament points in a game (55) :::''Sources for awards and records''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Henderson, Skip 1965 births Living people Sportspeople from Cartersville, Georgia Basketball players from Georgia (U.S. state) American men's basketball players Point guards Marshall Thundering Herd men's basketball players Prisoners sentenced to life imprisonment by Georgia (U.S. state) 20th-century American sportsmen