Henson Is Returning to Scene of His Prime

ST. LOUIS —  Lou Henson will be coaching up a storm tonight in an alumni game between Illinois and Missouri and looking a little silly wearing a bright orange blazer.

Henson, 73, was the last man to coach Illinois to a Final Four. In 1989, they weren’t all laughing with Lou. They were laughing at him. “I know what they thought about the orange blazers and the ‘Lou Do,’ ” Henson said Wednesday by phone from his home in Las Cruces, N.M. “But you know what? People finally paid attention to Illinois basketball, didn’t they?”

When Henson was coaching the Fighting Illini to 11 NCAA tournament appearances in 21 years and that Final Four run, he was a source of giggles. His hair -- a long, multi-colored swatch that was wrapped in a circle around his balding head, complemented the garish orange blazer, brighter than a pumpkin. There was almost always an orange streak through the middle of the “Lou Do.”

Goofy looks can be deceiving, though. When Henson retired from coaching in January, he was 21 victories from becoming only the fifth man to have 800.

“I was really hoping to reach that mark,” Henson said. “I can’t lie about that. The 800 wins would have meant something, maybe the proof I can coach a little.”

After receiving chemotherapy for nearly two years and experiencing remission of symptoms of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, Henson was struck last summer by a severe case of viral encephalitis that left him in a coma for three weeks and still with a partially paralyzed right leg.

In December, though he was in a wheelchair, Henson returned to practice at New Mexico State. But in January, a day before he was supposed to coach his first game this season, Henson was back in the hospital with pneumonia and pleurisy.

“My doctors told me it was too soon to come back,” Henson said.

Henson’s record of 779-413 was compiled over 41 seasons at Hardin-Simmons, New Mexico State twice and Illinois. While he was with the Aggies the first time, starting in 1966, Henson took them to six NCAA tournaments. In 1975 Henson left Las Cruces for a woebegone Illinois program that had won only 13 games combined over the two previous years.

After stepping down from Illinois in 1996, Henson was out of coaching for only a year. He returned in 1997 to bail out New Mexico State when Neil McCarthy was abruptly fired in the midst of a scandal over NCAA violations.

He will put on the orange blazer again tonight. The Lou Do? That’s gone.

“While I was in my coma,” Henson said, “my wife and daughters got to working on my hair. When I woke up, my hair was all modern, combed back or something. Can you believe that?”