By Adam Cancryn
Marshall Henderson is loud, fun and a personification of our changing attitude toward college athletics.
Has there ever been a player so brash — and yet so beloved — as Marshall Henderson?
The Ole Miss guard (by way of Utah, through Texas Tech and South Plains Junior College) defies all convention, especially in an old-school college basketball world built on the bronzed pillars of team play, scrappiness and a tear-stained "One Shining Moment." He's loud, cocky and downright infuriating. He's taken every necessary step toward becoming the sport's central villain, the latest in a long line of players we love to hate. And yet Henderson has become simply a player we love.
Coaches and teammates lavish praise not just on his play, but his personality: "It's like traveling with the Beatles," Coach Andy Kennedy gushed to the Times. Broadcasters can't get enough, and neither can the press. Ole Miss turned down 80 interview requests in the past week, only for Henderson to pop up on Twitter to announce, to much fanfare, that he'd won 10 games of beer pong.
And as far as the rest of us, we've been hooked. Ever since he led the Rebels to a win over Georgia and then skipped the postgame press conference because "it's Saturday night. I'm out." Or when he paraded around the court after a 63-61 win over Auburn, jersey-popping in the face of a hostile crowd. Or when he told reporters, with no hint of shame, that the NCAA tournament was first and foremost a chance to "get this money."
Who was this skinny kid with the big mouth at the SEC's perennial basement-dweller? More importantly, why was he winning so much, and then acting like a normal college kid, rather than the PR-infused mumble drones we've become accustomed to? Few players can bring that degree of braggadocio and then back it up. Henderson is perhaps the only one in recent memory that's done that and simultaneously won the public's heart.
Henderson's meteoric rise tells us, though, as much about us as fans as it does about one player's unique energy. The NCAA throughout history has trumpeted as college legends those that fulfill its ideal image: the humble student-athlete, playing his heart out for team and school. With some exceptions, it's been a successful campaign. In turn, it bolstered the NCAA's own image as wholesome do-gooder giving kids a chance at their dreams.
But that perception is slowly dissolving. The past few years have revealed the organization as more sinister, more exploitative than we'd like to believe. We know something is a bit off about the whole process, and while we haven't put our finger completely on it yet, we're getting closer. In the meantime, it's changed our view of the athletes that are shuffled in and out of the system: Maybe the universities don't have their best interests at heart. Maybe one-and-done isn't so bad after all. Maybe they do deserve compensation. Maybe, just maybe, it's all about getting this money.
Henderson has taken all of our quiet unease and fed it through a bullhorn. He's the NCAA's worst nightmare, the Rebel putting the system's hard realities on blast. He's the one who realizes it's all in the game, and is taking that game for all it's worth.
Now Henderson stands on the precipice of it all, just a few wins from becoming a tournament icon, enraging opponents and winning legions of new fans. The tide is turning against the NCAA's convoluted approach to amateurism, and this next week mark a major step in that process.
It's not a lost irony that the NCAA would profit (as always) from his success, with the ratings and merchandise and such. But those are short-term benefits at the expense of the NCAA's long-term decline. Marshall Henderson isn't the antihero that the NCAA deserves, but he's the one that the rest of us need.
Adam Cancryn is an editor and co-founder of Began in '96.
