ARCOLA — Mandy Hensley, a science teacher at Deer Creek School, was a star basketball player in high school who later played for Mississippi Delta Community College and the University of Arkansas at Monticello. She never lost her love and passion for the sport. She has spent the last few years watching her her three sons — Clayton, Chase and Carter — make their own imprint on the Deer Creek School athletic program. Still, she never thought she would actively be a part of a basketball team again.
Then, just days before the season began, an opening came up in the Deer Creek girls basketball program. She was asked to be the head coach, and she said ‘yes’.
She calls it a dream come true.
“There has always been a little fire in me to coach some day,” Hensley said before practice on Wednesday. “I always wanted to, but I never thought I would get to coach a basketball team. It was just a dream I had.”
From the opening day of practice, Coach Hensley, who played high school basketball at St. Joseph Catholic School, and her Lady Warriors have hit the ground running. The practices are filled with encouragement and tough love. The goal is to get better each day.
“After a game, when we go into the locker room, it is not about the score. We have lost more games then we have won. We have won only three games (an improvement from last season), but our wins are really if we have improved from the day before. Are we doing what we are supposed to be doing? If we improved, that is a win.”
Coach Hensley credits new assistant coach Bryan Nixon for this improvement, as well.
The Deer Creek School team is led by senior identical twins Mattie and Myles Arrington and fellow senior Josie Azlin. The players say they have already learned so much from their new coach.
“Coach Hensley has taught us about the game of basketball, and she knows how to let each person play to their strengths. She played basketball in college and she commands respect. She is firm,” said Mattie.
The players also say that their new coach is teaching them, through her example, the value of hard work. Coach Hensley practices what she preaches. Before school each day, Coach Hensley wakes up and works on her family’s cattle farm near Eudora, Ark.
“I leave the house before the sun comes up and I go to one pasture on the farm and put out hay. Then I drive into Eudora where we have our other herd of cows and I put out hay. Then, if they are having babies, I will get on a side by side and ride through all the cows and any baby cows I would catch them and put an ear tag that matches their mom. So, I do that and go back home and get ready for school.”
“Each morning it puts the day into perspective. When you can get up and see new life when a calf is born, and then you also have a new calf die at the same time. I can see new life and death among in a couple hours.”
