Every day after practice at McComb High School, players and coaches trot into the locker room. Coaches pack up and retreat home to their families, as do players.
Staying behind is Aquindus Henson, whose first move is to a storage shed off to the side of the practice field. The small shed houses several workout harnesses and next to the shed stands a pile of tractor and truck tires.
The junior running back swiftly straps the harness to himself, hooks a rope connecting the tire to the harness and sprints 15 yards up a hill. He repeats this 10-12 times after every practice, even on Mondays, which are limited to film sessions.
Grunts from the energy exerted can be heard from across the field.
It’s just an average day for a player who wants to be far from average.
“(McComb) coach (Malcolm) Jones always told me in class third period, ‘If you want to go to the next level, pull that tire up that hill.’’ Henson recalled. “… He always tells me hard work beats talent.”
Jones was a defensive back at Alcorn State during the 1990s and used tires as a form of resistant running. Nowadays, athletes use parachutes, but Jones implemented the old-school tire use during his summer workouts. Players dragged the tires across the field four or five times to work on leg power and speed bursts.
When the season started, Jones fazed out the tire running.
Henson didn’t.
One day, Jones described a story of how a group of linebackers at Alcorn ran uphill with the massive tires clinging to their backs.
Naturally, Henson followed suit.
“I shared that story with him and he said ‘You know what coach, I want to be as good as I can possibly be,’” Jones said. “ … He started telling me how many he was pulling and he said ‘I’m just going to keep going up coach. I want to be as good as I can possibly be.’ ”
Henson’s gritty work ethic has certainly paid off. It has turned the 5-foot-7-inch, 215-pound ball of muscle into an even more powerful runner.
Henson is fresh off a 194-yard, four-touchdown performance against South Jones and amassed 333 yards in his previous two games.
Henson now leads McComb in rushing with 534 yards on 88 carries (6.06 yards per carry) and six TDs.
His stamina and explosiveness have left him dragging multiple defenders several yards downfield. Against South Jones, Henson ripped off seven rushes of 10 yards or more, including a long run, in which he broke a pair of tackles and surged down the right sideline.
Henson isn’t shy about hitting people. One look at his helmet, which displays a huge chunk of yellow paint missing from all the hard collisions, tells the story.
“Guys would try to hit him and wrap him up and he would keep running,” Jones said. “I know I’m totally attributing that to those tires because you having to drag and pull those things behind you uphill. When he gets on level ground, it’s easy for him.”
Henson’s grip on McComb’s backfield has been spontaneous to say the least. He was rarely used last season as a sophomore and registered only 46 yards on 11 carries.
McComb had an already crowded backfield with seniors Deonte Evans and Cavellis Luckett, but Jones still expected a lot from the human bowling ball.
Henson was hard on himself for his 2011 campaign and owned up to the struggles he incurred.
“First of all, I wasn’t working hard. I wasn’t pushing myself,” he said. “Last year, I was stubborn. I was selfish. I was just a bad kid last year. I didn’t listen to none of the coaches. I thought I was better than everybody.”
When Evans and Luckett both graduated and went on to play at Mississippi State and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, respectively, Jones was left without a running back.
In the back of Jones’ mind, he wanted to hand the job over to Henson, but he wasn’t sold.
“I’m kind of an impatient guy. I need guys to make plays and make them right now,” Jones said. “You’re not going to get too many carries or opportunities if you’re not doing it instantly for me.”
Henson did little to sway Jones early in the season, so Jones resorted to motivational tactics. He tried to threaten Henson’s job with several combinations of running backs. None stuck and Henson eventually gained Jones’ trust and emerged as McComb’s go-to back.
“I would tell him all the time, ‘We need you to step up and be a big-time back, if not, we going to find someone who can do it,’ ” Jones said. “I don’t have any reservations about putting him back there now and doing what we need to do. He’s our guy, and we’re going to go with him.”
