Benedict's Hendrick happy in Columbia
By BEN LEDBETTER
Item Sports Writer
John Hendrick had been an assistant football coach on the NCAA Division
I level during most of his 23 years as a coach. Last year, however, he
led his own team for the first time.
It
wasn’t on the DI level though. Hendrick took over Benedict College’s
football program, which was revived in 1997. The Tigers are a member of
the Division II Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference.
And while Benedict doesn’t get the media exposure DI schools get, Hendrick couldn’t be happier.
“I’ve
had more fun working this job than I ever have,” Hendrick said. “This
is my 23rd year of coaching. I’ve never had this much fun coaching.
It’s more of a craftsman’s type of coaching.”
Hendrick was in
Sumter Saturday to speak at the #1 Jesus Annual Basketball Banquet at
Jehovah Missonary Baptist Church’s M.H. Newton Family Life Enrichment
Center.
Since Hendrick does not have to deal as much with
alumni, athletic boosters and highly-publicized players, that leaves
more time for coaching.
“I don’t really worry about the alumni,
alumni dollars, as many prima donna players, all those sorts of things,
and TV money,” he said. “That’s something I don’t have to worry about.
I was really tired of that working in Division I.”
The Tigers finished 6-5 overall and 4-4 in the SIAC in Hendrick’s first year. That was an improvement from 2002’s 2-9 season.
Benedict
will not have to wait long to see if it will be as good or better than
last year as it will open the 2004 season with Stillman College on Aug.
28, then South Carolina State the next week in the Palmetto Capital
City Classic at Williams-Brice Stadium.
“We’ll know how good of
a football team we are right away, which is fine with me,” Hendrick
said. “The biggest thing to me is you want to play against good
competition. I’m looking forward to it. I think we have the chance to
be a good football team.”
The conference schedule should also
provide tough opponents as Albany State and Fort Valley State are
expected to be the teams to beat, Hendrick said. He also expects
Tuskeegee to do well.
Albany State finished first last year in
the SIAC with a 7-1 mark and was 10-2 overall. Fort Valley State
finished third at 5-3 and 7-4. Tuskeegee and the Tigers both had a 4-4
league mark, with Tuskeegee finishing 5-6 overall.
Although Benedict has 17 starters coming back this season, one of Hendrick’s problems will be depth.
“The
biggest problem that we have more than anything is we don’t have a lot
of depth right now,” he said. “We’re going to depend on a lot of really
young people to be the backups. Hopefully they’ll catch on really
quick.”
Benedict had three former Sumter High players on the
team last year — defensive tackle Nick Brockington, wide receiver
Herbert Rembert and defensive back Tywain Titus. Hendrick is happy with
the players he has been able to bring in his first two years.
“We
had a great recruiting year. Actually we had two great recruiting years
in a row, even though the first one was abbreviated. This year we
signed some really good players from the state of South Carolina and
other places. I’m hoping some of them can come in and help us.”
Defense
certainly helped the Tigers last year. They were second in the
conference in total defense, yielding 260.6 yards a game. Benedict was
second to Albany State in the category.
The Tigers ranked near
the bottom in many SIAC offensive categories and were third-to-last in
total offense, with 250.5 yards per game.
If Benedict can get the offense running like the defense, Hendrick thinks his team will be fine.
“I think we’ll be a more productive offense,” he said. “If we can get some production on offense, we’ll be pretty good.”
Published: May 9, 2004
Recent Comments