Lost and found: Malik Henry and a college football career in limbo

INDEPENDENCE, Kan. — Malik Henry sits on a metal bench outside the Independence Community College fieldhouse, rubbing his hands together to stay warm on a 40-degree evening. He’s recounting the highlights of life in this town: There’s a Wal-Mart, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut, a steakhouse … and that’s about it. Henry grew up in Los Angeles. He spent nearly a year in sunny Tallahassee, Fla. And now he’s here.

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As frustrated as Henry gets about spending a year here, he does genuinely enjoy being out of the spotlight. He likes that people don’t know he’s currently toiling away at a faraway junior college.

“I love it, trust me,” Henry said. “Ever since high school, I’ve kind of been stuck in a bubble. There’s been a lot of pressure. It’s been nice to get away from it.”

Henry hates the attention but can’t escape it. His anonymity in this southeast Kansas town of 9,000 is only temporary. “Last Chance U” is filming at the school this year, capturing the rapid rise of the long-struggling program under head coach Jason Brown. The acclaimed Netflix documentary series is recording everything, all the good moments and the bad ones. In the end, it all gets edited together to tell a captivating story.

Henry can’t control what is shown, just as he’s been unable to control the one that’s already out there. The high school star and Under Armour All-American who attended four different high schools. The elite quarterback prospect who got suspended at Florida State and lasted less than a year there. The gifted player who needs to grow up.

Henry will be back in the spotlight soon. He holds an offer from Ole Miss and is eyeing Oklahoma State, Oregon and several more Power 5 programs. Brown says Henry needs to go play for the right coach, somebody who truly understands the 19-year-old and how to get through to him. But he’s not the easiest kid to understand.

Henry was the No. 4 ranked quarterback recruit in the class of 2016. He could be starting for the Seminoles right now. So how did he end up all the way out here?

“Football is not his issue at all,” Brown said. “We tell him that every day, man.”

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And Jason Brown tells it like it is, completely unfiltered. It’s obvious why the “Last Chance U” crew chose to follow him around this season.

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“Ah, man, it’s going good,” Brown says of being constantly filmed. “I’ll be fired, I’ll be at Indy or I’ll be at Alabama, man. One of those three fuckin’ things will happen. It is what it is. That’s what I signed up for, you know? So put your big boy pants on.”

Brown was born and raised in Compton, Calif., drives a Cadillac and talks fondly of smoking cigars at the beach house he owns in Long Beach. He spent most of his coaching career in California, but before that he played quarterback a four-hour drive from here at Fort Hays State from 2000-01. He came back because he says the state of Kansas has always been good to him.

He’s here at Independence because he likes the challenge. Brown arrived a year ago and led Indy to its first winning season in a decade. This season, the Pirates won their first conference title since 1977, going 8-2 and rising to No. 7 in the NJCAA national rankings.

This program had three returning players and didn’t even have a weight room when Brown showed up in December 2015. He rebuilt his office from scratch, converted a bathroom into his staff meeting room, installed new lockers, doubled his staff from six coaches to 12 and established new standards. Brown and his coaches say about 10 percent of their job is coaching football and 90 percent is chasing kids around, making sure they’re in class and study hall or checking their dorms.

To Brown, junior college is the hardest and most rewarding level of football. He calls his program “Dream U.” Degrees are more important than rings. He says if one of his players doesn’t graduate and move on, he failed them.

He does not care how he’ll be perceived on “Last Chance U.” He’s not going to put on an act for the cameras. He’s not going to change.

“He’s raw like that,” said Cornell Ward, his mentor and former coach. “He never had that persona of trying to be tough or bad or mean. He just is. It comes with the territory. He doesn’t want to mess around. He wants to get it done and never have excuses.”

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Brown is no less blunt when talking about his quarterback. He says Henry’s football IQ is as good as it gets. He’s as talented a passer as Brown has worked with in his career. He’s the best quarterback in their conference, Brown says, and probably the best juco QB in the country. But talent is not at all what holds Henry back.

“He’s come night and day since January,” Brown said. “I’ve nearly cut him 20 times. I’ve suspended him. I’ve done it all. He’s a lot better since then, but he has a long way to go.”

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Henry’s coaches say it’s a matter of maturity.

Brown had to suspend Henry for quarters and halves of games this season as punishment for missing class. They’ve butted heads over playcalling several times. When that happens, Henry thinks he’s showing leadership by offering input. Brown thinks his comments and critiques show a lack of respect.

“He’s a real fiery guy, I’m a real fiery guy,” Henry said. “We both want what’s best for the team, and we both have our opinions.”

They made it work, and they won together. They share the same mentor, the man who helped play matchmaker here. Ward coached Brown at Compton Community College, where he became a junior college All-America quarterback in 1999. Ward was also Henry’s Pop Warner quarterback coach and has been in his life for more than a decade.

Ward jokes that he’s often the “fireman” in the relationship between Brown and Henry. He knew they were both strong-willed and is not surprised they sometimes clash, but he still couldn’t be prouder.

“It’s like I’ve got my son who’s the head coach and then my grandson who’s the quarterback,” Ward said. “I get to sleep with a smile on my face thinking about these boys going through what they have to go through in order to get what they want. There’s not going to be an easy way.”

Another man in the middle of it all is Frank Diaz, the Independence quarterback coach who’s tried to keep Henry focused. Diaz is not getting paid for this job — he’s compensated with a dorm room and cafeteria meals, just like his players. He’s paying his dues and still paying student loans while trying to bring out the best in Henry.

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“He’s grown a lot from the time he got here to now,” Diaz said. “Now, he does sometimes take some steps backwards. He does have his moments. But he’s trying hard, and I appreciate that. It’s hard for a quarterback like him who comes from Florida State to come to juco and not kind of big-time juco and say, ‘Why am I doing this?’ ”

Diaz could say the same thing. He started off as an undergrad assistant at Oregon under Scott Frost during the Chip Kelly era and found his way here after five years coaching at West Los Angeles College. He came for the opportunity to coach Henry.

That opportunity has not been easy. Early in the season, after another incident, Diaz sat down with Henry and warned him he’d get booted if his attitude didn’t change. Henry has an introverted personality and can seem withdrawn at times. But he opened up to Diaz, telling him about the pain of leaving Florida State and how crushed he felt. They took a step forward.

“I kinda just needed some encouragement,” Henry said. “I was going through some things and pissed off I was here, mad at myself for being in this situation for having to come to juco.”

The way Diaz describes it, Henry was at “the bottom of the barrel” after leaving Florida State. He’s still climbing out.

“If he figures it out,” Diaz said, “a lot of coaches will be looking for that dude.”

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Henry ended up in southeast Kansas because he got lost.

Marchell Henry says his son felt like a failure when things didn’t work out at Florida State. He felt he’d let everybody down, from his family to his teammates to Florida State coach Jimbo Fisher.

“He was going through a difficult, emotional time, probably the most emotional time in his life at that point,” Marchell said. “Malik had never experienced failure as a player.”

Malik Henry said he left Tallahassee in order to deal with personal and family issues back home in California. His grandparents were both dealing with health problems, and that wore on him. He felt he was too far away.

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“In his mind, he thought being closer to home would help them get through what they were going through,” Marchell said. “He took on the burden of their issues, and there was no talking him out of that.”

Malik says he missed classes and team functions because he was distracted by the problems back home. He says that’s why Fisher suspended him for a month during fall practice last August for violating team rules. Henry redshirted and did not play in a game, then left school shortly after Thanksgiving to go home. He’d been committed to the school for more than two years but departed after just 11 months.

Brown said Florida State’s staff told him “nothing bad” about Henry, though he suspects any uncertainty about the circumstances of Henry’s exit might be causing caution among recruiters. Fisher publicly praised Henry when Henry on his way out.

“We wanted to keep Malik here,” Fisher told reporters last December. “He’s an outstanding young man, and I wish him nothing but the best. He’s a great young man.”

To some observers, this was just another move in the long list of transactions for Henry. He left Oaks Christian in Westlake Village, Calif., after his freshman year — where he was behind future Arizona QB Brandon Dawkins — to go be a starter at Westlake High in Thousand Oaks. After his junior year, he left for IMG Academy in Florida to be coached by former Heisman trophy winner Chris Weinke. When Weinke left for a job with the St. Louis Rams one month later, Henry returned home to play at Long Beach Poly.

Marchell Henry wants to make something clear: He’s the one who made all those choices.

“In my household, 15- and 16-year-olds don’t make the decisions. I make the decisions,” he said. “But people were beating him up in the media, treating him like he’s a prima donna or high maintenance.”

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Malik, his father said, never wanted to transfer to IMG and had to be talked into it. Marchell urged him to go, knowing Fisher and Florida State’s staff wanted him there to learn their pro-style system from Weinke. His departure from the famed college prep powerhouse brought more negative attention.

“It was mostly people trying to make something out of nothing, people trying to bring me down,” Malik said. “People have made accusations and assumptions and stereotyped me. I just let it go. I’m glad I’m not in the negative space that people try to place me in.”

He typically ignored that chatter. But the Florida State transfer took a greater toll. Leaving so soon was deeply unsatisfying. He enrolled early and performed well in their April spring game. He thought he could start as a true freshman. He says losing the starting job to Deondre Francois didn’t exacerbate his issues at FSU, but Diaz believes there were “broken promises” that bothered Henry.

“Malik has always started ever since the 10th grade. To not get any burn, you know how that goes,” Ward said. “You say, ‘I guess if I can’t play here, I need to go somewhere I can be the guy and not the other guy.’ ”

He had to work through that disappointment. Henry said he fell out of love with football by the time he left Florida State. He didn’t know if he wanted to play anymore. In the month and a half he was back home, he hit the gym and practice field with his father and tried to get excited again. He looked into transferring to UCLA or Oregon, but Brown — with Ward’s help — convinced him he needed to get back to playing instead of sitting out another year.

“When he went to Independence, he still had his doubts,” Marchell Henry said.

He was in a bad mood from the start. He didn’t want to be here. Brown took him under his wing and tried to be understanding and supportive. He said he saw a young man working through some “inner demons.” Henry said he still has hard days, days where he dwells on his mistakes and doesn’t want to get out of bed. He’s leaned on Ward, whom he calls “Pops” and the closest thing he has to a minister, for positivity.

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“I told him you don’t have to prove anything to the world,” Ward said. “You don’t have to prove anything to these other folks. You have to prove things to yourself and continue to build on yourself. It’s OK to take a step back to take two steps forward.”

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The next two weeks will go a long way toward deciding Henry’s future. He needs to get out of Independence.

“Malik’s got a long way to go in class to get graduated in December,” Brown said.

Henry is taking 23 credit hours this semester. He juggled seven classes during the season. He had to be aggressive with his schedule in order to get done in December and enroll somewhere else in January. Still, 23 hours is too much. He admits he’s concerned about math and biology and not sure how it will all work out. An English teacher who’s helping tutor him walked into Brown’s office two weeks ago and admitted she’s starting to get nervous about Henry’s chances.

“He controls his own destiny. He truly does,” Diaz said. “If he passes his classes, he can go wherever he wants. But he’s holding himself back. He legitimately has himself to blame if he doesn’t get it done, nobody else.”

His father says he’s optimistic Henry will get done in time. If he can, he’ll be a transfer with three seasons of eligibility. That would certainly be appealing to college recruiters. But it’s entirely up to Henry to write a positive ending to his experience at Independence.

Next summer, the “Last Chance U” crew will reveal all they’ve gathered from their time at Indy — the triumphs, the trials, the tantrums. Henry hopes viewers will understand his struggle. He hopes people will see he’s trying. He hopes they’ll see who he really is and not whatever they’d assumed. He wants this to be a story of maturation.

“I’m grateful to even have a second chance,” Henry said. “I’m really thankful for the opportunity these coaches have given me. When I get out of here, I’m gonna make the most of it and show the world I’m the best quarterback out there.”

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(Photos by Max Olson / The Athletic unless otherwise noted)

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