HENDERSON — The start of the high school basketball season may be months away but it’s been a nonstop summer of preparation already for Henderson ISD’s new head boys basketball coach.

Spencer Terry, a graduate of Lindale High School, joined the district in late spring and has spent the last two months working with the athletes in summer workouts and summer league games and also making time for a youth summer camp.

“Camp has been great. I felt bad because we came in late as far as the hiring process goes, so I wasn’t able to promote it as much as I normally would and we kind of had to run it later in the summer. But thankfully Henderson and the district was great about pushing it out for me,” said Terry after wrapping up three days of skills camp for 30 first through sixth graders at the Henderson Middle School from Monday to Wednesday last week. “And the kids were awesome. Everybody was running around yelling, having a lot of fun. I think by day three, everybody was really comfortable.”

Terry is a big believer in youth camps for growing a basketball program and inspiring a love for basketball in kids that stays with them. Next summer he hopes to hold a bigger camp with more grade levels.

Terry comes to Henderson from Whitehouse ISD where he was assistant coach for two years. Before that, he coached six years at Lindale, his hometown, and one year at Wylie East High School. Henderson is his first time as a head varsity basketball coach.

“It was exciting. It was something that had been in our plans for a while. We were just really trying to find the right spot,” said Terry.

He and his wife Chesney have three children with their oldest starting freshman year, so picking a district that was right for the kids factored heavily into the move.

“Everybody’s super welcoming. The community’s been great. I had a couple people reach out and just kind of say welcome,” added Terry. “So we really appreciate that, me and my family.”

Henderson Lions basketball has struggled to get wins in recent years and haven’t made the playoffs since 2019.

“We know it’s going to be a process, and that’s something that we’re signing up for in committing. But I do think that the community is supporting the growth of the basketball program. And I know [AD Ricky Meeks] in the athletic department has really pushed for the growth of the basketball program. So, I’m hoping we can all tackle it together and get it going in the right direction,” said Terry.

Terry approaches it with an acknowledgment that every program goes through ups and downs and that there’s been times where Henderson has been one of the top programs in East Texas, which it can always get back to.

“For us, we’re just going to come in and build relationships with kids and try to promote basketball around the community. We’re going to coach kids really, really hard. And hopefully, if we do things the right way, then the wins follow,” said Terry. “Our expectation is to win basketball games. There is no other expectation for us than that. There’s no getting by that. We have kind of an idea of no excuses for us. I don’t care that there’s been times of struggles or whatever. Our expectation is to find a way to win games. But with that being said, that’s not the only goal in mind.”

Across the board Terry also has a coaching philosophy of raising and coaching “good young men” who can put a product on the floor that their community is proud of.

“Coaching changes are hard on kids,” Terry also acknowledged. He will be the third new basketball coach in four years at Henderson. “Oftentimes we look at a coach as just somebody who has a job somewhere, but you spend the majority of your time with those kids and you get to know them on a personal level. So a coaching change is hard for kids. They’ve been great so far, they’ve been really responsive and they’ve shown up… We’ve kind of started to set the expectation that their job is to show up and compete and do the best of their ability and we’ll live with the result as long as they’re doing those things.”