8A
NEWS
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
FRIDAY, APRIL 25, 2008
HENLEY (CONTINUED FROM 1/4
of games and dancing. He even bought pizza for the event.
Henlev. No. 20, rushes past Iowa State defenders. Henley helped Kansas to a 10-2 record his junior year and finished his career as the topusher in KU history. His behavior troubles while at the University of Kansas, however, marred his tenure.
When graduation rolled around, the senior class president and prom king gave the speech.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
"What up," June shouted.
All the seniors erupted
June's mother, Mary Henley, holds a picture of June during his football years at the University. Mary first wanted June to play baseball, but real-ized that June loved football. "You could just see the desire in it." Mary said. "All his life"
"He had to say two words," Mary said, "and they went off."
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"I would have staked my life on June Henley." Hauser said.
June doesn't remember exactly what he said that day. Neither do his parents. They were just proud. June graduated with good grades, had a steady girlfriend named Tracy Simmons and was getting ready to play football at Kansas: a sure success story.
June Henley took one look at the University of Kansas and knew. Really, One look.
June saw the spacious, tree-covered campus and fell in love right away.
"Mom," June told Mary, "I'm going here. I already know."
He also liked coach Glenn Mason and his recruiting assistant, Mitch Browning. They promised that June would get the opportunity to play running back. Michigan and Ohio State had been recruiting June as a defensive back.
Mason's decision to let him run paid off immediately. June ran for 83 yards against Florida State his first game. He continued to impress as the season went on — 143 yards against Nebraska, 237 against Iowa State, a 100-yard kickoff return against Colorado. Charles Sr. and Mary bought two-for-one plane tickets on Southwest so they could see every home game. Life was great. Then trouble arrived.
Georgia Hauser saw June's mug in the upper corner of her TV on SportsCenter one Thursday evening
in November 1993. He'd been caught with a couple of teammates stealing a leather coat and a pair of Reebok basketball shoes from the Half Price Store on Iowa Street a few days earlier. It wasn't the first time they'd
Henley crowded into the Henley's three-bedroom house on Renwood Place and watched the 1997 NFL Draft on a big-screen TV. Burgers and hot dogs sizzled on the grill outside. Greens and other Mary Henley specialties baked in the
"Part of a college coach's problem is working through their problems, solving their problems."
done it, just the first time they'd gotten caught.
GLENN MASON Former Kansas football coach
"We just thought we could get away with it." June recalled.
The news broke two days before he was supposed to break the KU freshman rushing record. Mason let June run that Saturday. He scorched Missouri for 118 yards and entered the Kansas history books.
His behavior troubles continued. June helped Kansas to a 10-2 record his junior year and finished his career as the top rusher in KU history, but several incidents marred his tenure. He was arrested in 1995 for pushing his girlfriend. In 1996, he was cited for not paying child support, but the charges were dropped. Later that year, June got pulled over for a DUI, driving with an expired license and driving without insurance. He finished his last year of college 10 credits short of a degree, hoping for a long career in the NFL.
"Part of a college coach's problems is working through their problems, solving their problems," Mason said. "You might see a good football player and see he's a bad guy. That was not June."
Friends and family of June
*****
kitchen.
This was June's big weekend—the coronation of years of hard work, the ticket to a long career of fame, fortune and football.
Afterwaiting all of Saturday, the Kansas City Chiefs
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
finally selected June with the first pick in the fifth round on Sunday. Analysts said June dropped in the draft because of his behavior issues. He wanted to prove them wrong. With Kansas City, he never got the opportunity. The Chiefs cut him, and June spent his rookie season on the St. Louis Rams' practice squad.
June beat out Greg Hill, Robert
4. 2.1
Holcombe and Jerald Moore the next year and started three games for the Rams. In his first start, June rushed for 86 yards and two touchdowns in a victory against the New
Faulk, June was living the life. He bought a Lincoln Navigator, partied hard and spent his money.
Sometimes, after practices, quarterback Kurt Warner would ask June if he wanted to come to Bible study with him. The reply was always the same.
"It's all about June right now," June recalls telling him. "God can wait."
"He'll take it away from you," Warner would tell June, "if you don't give back."
He wouldn't mind backing up
The dream got taken away sooner than June ever imagined. In a late July scrimmage against the Indianapolis Colts, June felt his toe pop up after a carry. Turf toe. Hed had it before and expected it to last two or three weeks. But this pain was severe. June didn't play the rest of the preseason and had to make a decision: play for the practice squad for less money or take an injury settlement.
England Patriots, his brother Terry Glenn's team.
Most of his money from the previous season had already been consumed because of his extravagant lifestyle. With Simmons pregnant again, June chose the settlement.
"It showed me that I can do this," June said. "I can play at this level. It let me know and let the coaches know."
St. Louis rewarded him with a two-year, $600,000 contract but also signed Marshall Faulk that offseason, making June the default backup.
"It was hard to take. That was all I knew growing up — football, football, football."
JUNE HENLEY
Former Kansas football player
June tried out later that season for the Miami Dolphins, and Glenn got him a workout with the Patriots the next season, but June didn't make either team.
After 17 years of being a star, football was gone from June Henley's life.
"I didn't really ever accept it fully like, oh this is it," June said. "It was hard to take. That was all I knew growing up — football, football, football."
★★★★
A U-Haul pulled up to Mary Henley's house on a sticky, hot Columbus summer day. June and
Mary unloaded clothes and furniture into the basement. Day one of life two.
"If you're coming back home, it must be time for you to get the Lord. to get right with Christ if football's not going to work and forget about it." Marry said she told June.
If only it were that easy.
June got a job at a steel processing plant. He wore boots with steel toes. He stood in front of a conveyor belt. He earned about $80 on his first paycheck.
"For real, this is not me." June thought back then. "I know this can't be."
A picture of Henley as a football player at Brookhaven High School hangs on a wall above. Friends and teachers of Henley remember him as much for his playful personality as they do for his football, basketball and track.
CONTRIBUTED PHOTO
Family and friends urged him to go back to school and finish his final 10 credit hours. June even once contacted Kansas to get his transcripts, but he never re-enrolled.
June soon quit and started working for Charles Sr. in the Dispatch's circulation department.
Life in the real world started taking its toll. He missed football, hated work and had just ended his 11-year relationship with Tracy.
"Once June knew he wasn't going to play pro," Whiting said, "he just gave up."
The free ride others gave June the football star also stopped. He used to get out of tests and homework assignments in high school and got suspended for only one game in college for all of his legal troubles.
"We put athletes on a pedestal," Whiting said. "In Columbus, he could get away with anything because everybody knew him."
About three or four weeks after his last tryout for the Patriots, June started "indulging." He smoked crack or snorted cocaine and even tried selling it.
His new girlfriend, Makeda Martin, was the first to find out. One night June called her to pick him up from a bar then came clean. He told her he started smoking crack and had cheated on her a couple times.
"It's not going to be an easy road," Martin said she told her boyfriend that night.
drugs sometimes gave him money, knowing that if she didn't, June would steal to fund his drug use.
Drugs provided an escape to June's depression.
"You get clean." June said about being in jail, "then come out and do the same thing."
She knew that because he did steal. He was charged twice with misdemeanor theft in 2003 and sentenced to three months in a Columbus jail.
For the next two years, June kept using drugs and was charged with possession of drug paraphernalia in December 2000. Then, as his mother said, he hit rock bottom.
"We athletes on a pedestal. In Columbus, he could get away with anything."
The binges could last for two or three days, Martin said. June would return to Martin's house to eat, sleep, ask for money and then return to the street. Martin, who worked at a bank and didn't use
MARV WHITING Henley's high school coach
"When you're doing that," June said, "you ain't really worried about anything else. Everything else can be put on hold."
June quit working and started going on drug binges. Hed go to the crack houses scattered throughout the North Columbus neighborhoods and smoke until he didn't have to think about why he didn't play football anymore.
"Those were scary times," Mary said. "I could tell something was wrong because he wasn't com-
by, Mary said she prayed for him, hoping that the Lord could help her son.
A
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Martin hadn't seen June for several days. Another crack binge. Martin always got scared, but she said she always thought he'd come back home every time. On Nov. 17, 2005, he didn't.
That morning, just before 10, June sat in the driver's seat of a rusty Chevrolet van outside a modest one-story house at 2875 Hamilton Ave. A red rag covered the license plate. Past the giant oak tree in the front yard and inside the red door,
SEE HENLEY ON PAGE 9A
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