Randy Smith: Remembering Carey Henley

  • Thursday, August 16, 2018
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith
As the 2018 high school football season gets underway this week, I fondly think of my old buddy Coach Carey Henley. He passed away in 2013 at the age of 76 but we became friends when I came to Chattanooga in 1975. I was the sports director at WDXB radio and he was head coach at Brainerd.  He had been a star running back at U.C. back before the school joined the University of Tennessee system. He played for the legendary Coach Scrappy Moore and after graduating played for one year with the Buffalo Bills of the old AFL.

Carey was a talker.
He was one of the funniest and most personable people I ever met. When WDEF-TV broadcast a UTC football game at Marshall in 1982, I talked him into being my analyst, so we made the trip to Huntington, West Virginia. He did a super job as expected and on the return flight home we had a long layover in the Charlotte airport. I stepped into one of the snack shops in the airport and when I returned to the gate, Carey had found legendary  comedian Jerry Clower and the two Mississippi natives were swapping stories. As I approached the two men, Jerry Clower looked at me and said, " I can tell by your girth that you are the 'narrigator' of this outfit."

We all laughed as I sat down and for the next two hours we swapped stories, talked football, and laughed. Coach Henley proceeded to tell one of the best high school football stories I've ever heard. He started his head coaching career at Kirkman. The Hawks had some great teams under Henley and one of the teams had a super defense. His defensive coordinator was another legendary high school coach from our area, Tom Weathers. It seems that Kirkman had gone many quarters consecutively without giving up a single point. They were approaching a record as they traveled to Benton, TN to face Polk County.

Now get the picture. There were no bleachers on the visitors' side of the field back then, only a big cow pasture behind the Kirkman squad. There were a couple of older gentlemen standing behind the team, whittling away on strips of wood as the Hawks built a commanding lead early in the second half. Coach Henley and Coach Weathers put in some substitutes and sure enough, Polk County started to move the football. That scoreless streak was in jeopardy as Coach Weathers approached Coach Henley and said, " We need to put our starters back in the game Coach. `

One of those older gentlemen overheard the two coaches talking, and replied, " If you put them starters back in, I'll cut your throat. "

A minute or two later, Weathers approached Henley again and said, " Coach if we do put 'em back in, let's put 'em in one at a time. "

Jerry Clower loved that story. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't tell it a time or two himself. From that day on, Jerry Clower and I began a friendship that lasted quite a while. As we begin another high school football campaign, I really miss Carey Henley. There is no coach on the field today with as much personality as him. After all, if he hadn't been so personable, I may never have met Jerry Clower.   
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Randy Smith can be reached at rsmithsports@comcast.net

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