Foes Rank Serra’s Jerald Henry Among Elite

Jim Barnett, football coach at Trabuco Hills High, did not like what he saw last week as he watched game videos in preparation for his team’s CIF-Southern Section playoff opener.

The focal point of Barnett’s concern was Serra High running back Jerald Henry, perhaps the most explosive player in the South Bay.

“When you see someone like that on film, you’re always hoping he’s not that good when you get in the game,” Barnett said. “But he was. He made a lot of our guys look stupid.”

Don’t feel bad, coach. Henry, who rushed for 351 yards and three touchdowns Friday night in a 34-21 Division VII playoff victory over Trabuco Hills, has a knack of leaving defensive players in his tracks.

The speedy 5-foot-9, 180-pound senior leads the area with 24 touchdowns in nine games. Eleven TDs have come on runs of 40 yards or longer, and five have covered at least 70 yards. His longest was a 95-yard run Sept. 28 against St. Paul, the Mission League champion noted for its tough defense.

Henry’s secret?

“I stay focused and keep my legs pumping,” he said. “I don’t let one person bring me down.”

In Friday’s game, Henry had touchdown runs of 83, 28 and 78 yards against Trabuco Hills. The third score, in the fourth quarter, clinched the game for Serra (9-0), which will bring a 23-game winning streak into the quarterfinals Friday night at La Mirada (9-2).

Barnett, who coached several talented Long Beach Poly teams before moving to Trabuco Hills in 1986, says Henry is in an elite class.

“With my Poly background, I’ve seen backs who were just fast,” he said. “The great backs have that change of pace. They can slow up to read blocks, and then turn it right back on. (Henry) has a great change of speed.”

Barnett compares Henry to Lompoc’s Napolean Kaufman and Paramount’s Leon Neal, perhaps the top two running backs in the Southern Section.

“I’d put (Henry) in the same category,” he said.

The modest Henry avoids comparisons, even with his older brother, John, an All-Camino Real League running back for Verbum Dei in 1988. He says he is only as good as the players who block for him.

“We have a great offensive line that does the job every game,” he said. “They deserve most of the credit. I just do what it takes to win.”

He must be doing something right. In his two seasons as a varsity starter, Serra is unbeaten and untied. Henry, who also starts at safety, was part of an impressive full-house backfield that averaged more than 300 yards rushing a game last season, leading Serra to the Division VII title and a 14-0 record.

But Henry played in the shadow of fullback Dennis Gerard, the 1989 Times South Bay Back of the Year. With the graduation of Gerard, quarterback Fred Safford and halfback Lamont Daniel, Henry has emerged as a marquee player.

“He’s the guy the players look to when our backs are against the wall,” Serra Coach Leo Hand said. “In the last game (against Trabuco Hills), the kids turned to him in the huddle. It was like ‘You have to do it for us.’ Football is such a team game; all the kids understand that. But this was one time when they asked him to do a little more.”

Hand, in an effort to maintain team unity and unselfishness, does not keep statistics. But based on newspaper accounts, Henry is the South Bay’s leading rusher with 1,555 yards and 22 touchdowns on 127 carries, an average of 12.2 yards per carry. In his most economical performance, he rushed for 248 yards and five TDs on five carries Oct. 26 in a 54-3 victory over St. Anthony.

Henry also leads the South Bay with 170 points (24 TDs and 13 two-point conversions). That’s more than several area teams put on the scoreboard for the entire season.

Despite his exploits as a running back, Henry expects to play defensive back in college. He is considering USC, Kansas and Hawaii, with USC topping his list of prospective schools.

“I like defense,” he said. “I like the competition of hitting someone. It feels good.”

Barnett agrees that Henry has promise as a defensive player, probably at cornerback. Henry showed his coverage skills Friday, intercepting a pass at the Serra eight-yard line to protect a 26-21 lead with 5:31 left to play. It was his second interception of the season.

“His size limits him a little bit (as a running back), but not a lot anymore,” Barnett said. “A great back is a great back. Obviously, he’s an athlete.”

The deceptively strong Henry--he bench-presses 250 pounds--plays with the same rugged attitude whether he’s bringing down a tight end or taking on a linebacker. Rarely does he shy away from contact.

“(Gerard) taught me to run hard and stay low,” Henry said of his former teammate. “I don’t let teams get a clean shot at me. I try to deliver the blow instead of taking it. I’ve been running that way since I got to Serra.”

Henry chose to attend the all-boys Catholic school in Gardena despite the fact he lives in Carson, home of L.A. City football power Carson High.

“I didn’t like Carson High School,” he said. “I decided to go to Serra because I liked the academics

and the kind of program they had.”

Henry carries a 3.0 grade-point average and scored 830 on the Scholastic Aptitude Test. A 700 score is required by the NCAA to be eligible as a college freshman.

Henry says one of the keys to Serra’s success over the last two seasons is the closeness of the players. The Cavaliers have a small varsity roster of 35 players, several of whom are two-way starters.

“We try to stay as a family,” he said. “It carries over to our games.”

Hand has been pleased with Henry’s progress this season. He said the senior has improved in several areas, most notably blocking and endurance.

“Last year he would get tired at times,” Hand said. “It’s a tough thing to play defensive back and have (receivers) running you deep, and then come back and run the ball. But he’s doing a tremendous job.”

If Serra wins two more games, it would put the Cavaliers in the Division VII title game for the second consecutive year. Serra capped the 1989 season with a 34-31 victory over Lompoc and the highly recruited Kaufman, who scored four touchdowns in the final at El Camino College.

But the Cavaliers are taking nothing for granted, Henry said. If Serra was guilty of looking ahead, the team was brought back to reality last week when Trabuco Hills grabbed a 21-20 lead in the third quarter. It marked the first time this season the Cavaliers had fallen behind in the second half.

“I know it’s going to be tougher this time,” Henry said. “We’re really going to have to work hard to get back (to the final).

“The winning streak puts a lot of pressure on us. Everyone is waiting for us to lose. But we don’t want to lose. We have a lot of juniors on this team that want a (championship) ring, and I want to get a ring my senior year.”

That could be a good sign. After all, what Jerald Henry wants, he usually gets.