Lou Henson, the all-time winning leader as a men’s basketball coach at the University of Illinois and the state of New Mexico, died Saturday at his home in Champaign, Illinois, at the age of 88, his family announced Wednesday.
He was buried Wednesday at a ceremony in Champaign, attended by only family members.
Henson began his coaching career at Las Cruces High School (New Mexico) in 1957 and spent 21 years in Illinois. He retired in 2005, 21 wins before becoming the fifth coach in Division I history to win 800 games. Henson retired with a professional record of 779-413, the sixth-highest winner in Division I history at the time.
During a 41-year career, Henson became the most winning coach in Illinois (423) and in the State of New Mexico (289), where he trained from 1966 to 1975 and again from 1997 to 2005. He led both schools to the Final Four: the Aggies in 1970 and Illini in 1989.
Henson rebuilt Illinois basketball into a national power in the late 1980s. When Henson took the Illinois job in 1975, he inherited a program that came from the last two consecutive positions in the Big Ten. In his 21 years with Illinois, Henson changed the program by scoring 12 appearances in NCAA tournaments.
“Our orange and blue hearts are heavy,” said Illinois Athletic Director Josh Whitman in a statement. “We lost an Illini icon. We lost a role model, a friend and a leader. We lost our coach. Coach Henson may be gone, but the memories he gave us and the legacy he created will last forever. He was responsible for nearly 800 record book victories and countless Fighting Illini moments frozen in time, but Coach Henson’s true measure will be felt in the lives he touched: the lives of his former players, people on this campus and friends in our community more wide.
“We are all better because of the time we had the privilege of spending with Coach Lou, whether it was five minutes or 50 years. He made everyone feel like friends. I really enjoyed my time with Coach these past five years, and I will miss Him. Our thoughts and prayers go out to Mary, Lisa, Lori, Leigh Anne and the entire Henson family. His family will always be part of ours. “
Officially, Henson has 779 career major college victories in Hardin-Simmons, New Mexico State, and Illinois. That doesn’t count 18 NCAA victories taken away when Henson essentially served as a volunteer coach after the State of New Mexico fired Neil McCarthy in 1997 during an NCAA investigation into violations.
Basketball courts in the states of Illinois and New Mexico are named after Henson.
Born in Okay, Oklahoma, Henson played as a guard for the State of New Mexico, then coached Las Cruces High School three consecutive state championships, a career that ended in 1961.
He began training in the ranks of the university in 1962 at Hardin-Simmons in Abilene, Texas. As a condition of taking the Hardin-Simmons job, Henson insisted that the team (and therefore the school) be racially integrated, a condition that the university agreed upon.
“When Hardin-Simmons contacted me, I said no,” Henson once told the Champaign News-Gazette. “But I finally agreed to meet with the board and told them I would consider whether to allow me to join the team. I told them there was no way we could be successful if we couldn’t recruit black players.” The board met the next morning and agreed, and I took the job. “
In 1966, he took over his alma mater, New Mexico state. In their first season at NMSU, the Aggies recovered from a 4-22 record the previous season to finish 15-11 and go to the NCAA tournament. In 1970, Henson would help lead the Aggies to the Final Four for the only time in the history of the school. They lost in the tournament semi-final to eventual champion UCLA, the third time in three years the Aggies lost to UCLA in the tournament. Henson trained in the State of New Mexico for nine seasons, with six trips to the NCAA tournament and four 20-win seasons.
In 1975, Henson moved to Illinois to replace Gene Bartow, after Bartow left Illinois to replace John Wooden at UCLA. In 21 years in Illinois, Henson had a record of 423-224 that included a record of 214-164 in the Big Ten. The 214 Big Ten wins were the third highest total at the time of his retirement. His 1988-89 Illini team won a record 31 school games and went to the Final Four.
After retiring from Illinois, Henson divided the time between his home in Las Cruces and Champaign. Two days before practice began for the 1997-98 season, the State of New Mexico reassigned McCarthy after NCAA violations were alleged. Henson agreed to be an interim coach. He took the job for a year and a salary of $ 1 a month.
“They paid me every two months,” Henson once told reporters in 2004. “I received three checks and they were for 77 cents a net salary. I still have them.”
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