W H E R E A R E T H E Y N O W ? Jack Henn
Along with captaining the USA’s 1968 Olympic Team, the setter known for his nectar deliveries, athleticism and versatility helped many notable players better their games
JACK HENN WAS FLOOR CAPTAIN OF THE U.S. VOLLEYBALL Team that beat the top-ranked Soviets at the 1968 Olympics, and head coach of the 1973 San Diego State men’s team that won the school’s only NCAA championship. But the memory that lights up his face more than anything is of the three years he spent teaching physical education in India. “It was the greatest experience I’ve ever had,” he says of a job he held
from 1976 to 1979 that included such challenges as teaching swim- ming in 80-foot-deep wells to kids who had never been in the water. “I coached 13 sports. I even coached cricket; I had to get a couple of books and read about it. “Some of the students have stayed in touch. One is a retired colonel who was a dental surgeon in the service. I get an email from him just about every day.” Henn, who coached at San Diego State until 2000 and is now a
retiree living in San Diego, mentored many top-level players after suffer- ing a career-shortening knee injury in 1969. While playing a match for the U.S. in a dilapidated gym in Uruguay, he got hurt when he caught his foot on a raised piece of floorboard; a week lat- er, he wrapped the knee with a piece of material used to secure mattress springs – “I needed something strong enough to keep it from bending,” he says – and hobbled through USA Volleyball Nationals, setting his team to an Open division national championship. Among the players he has helped: 1984 Olympic gold medalist Chris Marlowe, who sought him out for setting tutelage, and current beach pro John Hyden, who worked with Henn on passing before playing for the U.S. Men’s National Team at the 1996 and 2000 Olympics. “For Hyden, I built a pass- ing target out of PVC pipe, and
I’d bring out a cage of 42 balls and say, ‘How many you going to put in that cage this morning?’ He could do anywhere between 35 and 38. I wanted to get him to be goal-oriented and to understand that when the ball hits the PVC, it’s close to being good, but it’s not good.” Precision was a big focus for Henn as a player, too. Former team- mates will tell you that nobody was better at delivering hittable sets. “He would put the ball on the money, which was important in those days because the range of the hitter was so limited compared to today,” says Danny Patterson, who played alongside Henn on the 1968 Olympic Team. “Jack was also an extremely smart player, and he stood out with his all-around game. He could hit, and he had an incredible serve. He was much more of an athlete than a lot of players. He has the body of a rag doll, and he could go up and swing with either hand with great range.”
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Jack Henn (3) was part of the 1968 U.S. Olympic Men’s Volleyball Team that upset the top-ranked Soviet Union in its first match in Mexico City. The Soviet Union went on to win the gold medal while the U.S. finished seventh.
Born in Evansville, Indiana, Henn moved with his family to Cali-
fornia as a young kid when his father, Jacob, an industrial engineer, got a job with Hughes Aircraft in Long Beach. At 14, after moving to San Diego, Jack got his introduction to volleyball when his dad began playing 6-man indoor in an industrial league. From there, Jack became a AAA beach player, racking up a total of eight all-American indoor awards between USAV nationals and the college championships. He then started as a setter-hitter on the 1968 Olympic Team that finished seventh in Mexico City. The big highlight from the 1968 Games came when the U.S. defeated the Russians, who went on to win the gold. “The Soviets never lost another match after we beat them,” Henn
says. “I didn’t feel they were the best team, but they were so solid and they had been together so long. Our team was pretty good, but we’d only trained for about three weeks before the Olympics.” The heaviest training for the 6-1 ½ Henn came in his teenage years.
He’d play on the beach until late afternoon, go home to grab a shower and a bite to eat, then show up at different gyms around San Diego to play deep-court doubles or threes from 6:30 to 10 p.m. “Deep-court was a great game,” Henn says. “There were lots of side-
outs, and you would hit the back of the ball rather than the top of the ball, so you had a chance to play defense. That helped that skill a lot.” After 13 knee operations, Henn, now 74 and the father of two grown kids, gets his sports fix these days by helping with fundraising for youth athletic organizations and playing golf. The last time he played volleyball was at a legends beach tournament in the mid-1990s in Newport Beach, California. He actually got paid for that event, which was pretty cool for a guy who, despite being one the top setters in U.S. history and a recipient of USA Volleyball’s All-Time Greatest Players Award (2011), had never made a dime playing the game and often had to economize by sleeping on garage floors or patio furniture. “I got a check for $500,” Henn says with a laugh. “It allows me to tell people that I played pro volleyball.”
— Don Patterson
PHOTO: PETER BROUILLET
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