By Kyle Roberts
RUSTON, La. — Louisiana Tech University President Dr. Jim Henderson’s passion for Louisiana Tech and Ruston is practically in his blood.
As well it should be, being the son of two graduates — father Clem and mother Martha — who both walked the campus in the heart of Ruston back when it was still known as Louisiana Polytechnic Institute.
And he’s got a pretty sweet view in his 16th-floor office in Wyly Tower: on the right day, he can see where both of his parents had trod – from his mother’s commute from Hodge to the south and his father’s time Joe Aillet Stadium as a Bulldog football player from the west.
“I’ll talk all the time about Ruston and North Louisiana,” Henderson said in an interview with the Lincoln Parish Journal. “This area is so influential in my upbringing.”
As a young athlete himself, Henderson would come to Ruston to attend the Bulldogs’ football camp, getting a feel for what life on Tech campus was like for students — from walks around the Lady in the Mist to the trek to Johnny’s on Tech drive, passing Joe Aillet Stadium, named for the legendary Bulldog head football coach. And as it turns out, Aillet had coached Clem as a football player back in the early 1940s.
“He was part of the Tech team that played for Coach Aillet before (World War II),” Henderson said. “And then in the Spring of 1943, they had to go overseas. So my father was in the 2nd Division of the Marine Corps for three years (serving in Japan). And Coach Aillet told them that he would hold their scholarships when they returned. And they all came back.”
Aillet’s care for Clem left such a lasting mark that when Clem passed away at the Veteran’s Home in Bossier City, he had a portrait of Aillet hanging above his bed. Henderson has a similar picture mounted in the president’s office, above Aillet’s golf clubs and golf shoes that are well over six decades old.
After his years at Tech earning his degree in mathematics, Clem then became a legendary coach of sorts as the head coach for Fair Park High School’s basketball squad in Shreveport back in the 1960s. Henderson shared that when Barmore had free time as a Tech student himself, he would come over and watch Clem coach.
A mutual respect then formed between two men that would be known as high-performing coaches in their respective areas. And one that must have had an indelible effect on Barmore, because out of the proverbial (Columbia) blue, the national championship winning Barmore came to see Henderson during his first year as president with a gift.
It was Barmore’s 1982 National Championship ring, which had been finally given to the team and coaches in 2017 by the NCAA during a halftime ceremony in a game between the Techsters and Old Dominion. Henderson had fallen in love with the program back in 1982, when he got to see the Techsters in person at a game in Tulsa, Okla., getting to see Barmore, and names like Pam Kelly, Kim Mulkey, and Angela Turner who all graced the Thomas Assembly Center court with their incredible skill.
“I was speechless,” Henderson said. “I think my hand was trembling, because this is one of the greatest — if not the greatest– basketball coach in history. He could have done anything and been anything he wanted to be. And he led this program to the ultimate level. The gift meant so much to me — not because it’s an artifact, but what it meant to come from Leon Barmore, who my dad respected above all coaches. And (Coach Barmore) respected my dad above most coaches. It was a full-circle moment for me and that’s rooted deeply into history for me.”
Henderson and his wife Tonia have now been in Ruston full-time for over a year writing their own legacy and shared that they have felt the warmly welcomed by the community overall.
“This is a community of people that understand what that word means,” Henderson said. “They understand the value of Louisiana Tech, surely, but they also understand what it means to live in a town that is really ‘yours,’ and one that everyone has a vested interest in making better. I am so enamored with this city, one that I’ve known for a long, long time, but one that I’ve called home for just a short time.
“It’s a remarkable place to live and work, and it’s an incredible value to Louisiana Tech and the students who come here.”
You can certainly imagine Mr. Clem and Mrs. Martha saying the same thing.
