Henderson accepts college basketball coaching position
By Jennifer Eisenbart
Editor
Make no mistake: Catholic Central High School Principal and boys basketball coach Eric Henderson loves Burlington.
And, he said, he loves the community in which he works.
But when an offer he hadn’t even imagined came his way during the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, it turned out it was one he couldn’t refuse.
North Dakota State University announced Monday that Henderson will join the staff at the Division 1 school as an assistant coach.
Henderson said the new job decision was “bittersweet.”
“We will miss this place tremendously,” said Henderson, who has coached at CCHS for five years and served as principal for the last two after being athletic director.
“It was an opportunity I didn’t want to pass up,” Henderson said.
A search for a new principal and boys basketball coach has begun, but Henderson wasn’t sure if the school would hire one person to fill both jobs – or hire two different people.
He used the word “blessed” in describing his relationship with the CCHS, St. Mary’s Church and Burlington communities.
Henderson’s contract runs through June 30.
The Hilltoppers basketball team had struggled to find its footing under Henderson’s first few years, but hit a stride early this season and finished 21-5, reaching the sectional semifinals before falling to Central Wisconsin Christian.
While Catholic Central loses three seniors, the components for a good 2015-16 season are in place.
But Henderson, who started his coaching career at Wayne State in Nebraska and later as an assistant at Iowa State, couldn’t pass up the opportunity to coach NCAA Division 1 men’s basketball.
“It’s always been something in the back of my mind,” said Henderson, who added that he didn’t want to look back in the future and regret not trying college coaching again.
Henderson told the CCHS students on April 24, just before the Easter holiday break.
“That was the hardest part,” he said. “I love all 182 kids in our school, and I’m going to miss seeing them every day.”
But Henderson also said, simply, that the school didn’t revolve around him.
“Catholic Central is not built on the principal, or the basketball coach,” he explained. “It’s built on the students.
“This school is in good hands.”
CCHS Athletic Director Tom Aldrich called Henderson just “a genuinely good person.”
“He’s a great person,” Aldrich said. “He’s a quality man,” Aldrich said. “He has all the virtues and character traits that you look for in a person that you put in that position.
“But I wish him the best. I’m happy for him.”
Henderson will head to Fargo, N.D., with his wife, Alicia, and two sons, Kooper and Kort.
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