One For The Books

Tick, tick, tick.

Colin Ward-Henninger is on the clock. This, he thinks to himself, could get interesting.

He sighs, takes a deep breath and puts on a serious face. He won’t be making any game-winning free throws or nailing a shot from the outside. He’ll be writing an in-class essay--an analysis of rhetoric.

Ward-Henninger, a senior at Buckley High, is just as comfortable with a pen in his hand as he is with a basketball. He can make plays on the court and make grades in class.

The 6-foot-3 forward has helped bring basketball prosperity to a school that won its second league title since 1974 last season. He’s averaging 24.7 points and nine rebounds while refusing to sacrifice his strong academic standing.

Case in point: Last year, Buckley lost in the quarterfinals to eventual Southern Section Division V-AA champion St. Anthony, but Ward-Henninger pulled off a victory the next day by writing the essay on rhetoric in English class.

“He walked in, sat down, never said a word and wrote,” said his teacher, Nancy Booth.

It was nothing new for Ward-Henninger, a baseball and basketball standout who zips through textbooks with the same ease as he penetrates the lane.

Ward-Henninger scored a perfect 800 on his SAT II English exam, a 60-minute test on grammar usage and essay-writing for prospective colleges.

“I see 760s and 780s, but to break 800 is pretty amazing,” said Booth, who has been teaching for 18 years. “It’s practically unheard of.

“When he came in last year, I thought it would be a real problem. I thought he wouldn’t be getting his work done [because of athletics] and would always be asking for extensions. He was a leader, though. He’s an incredible thinker.”

It’s an attribute traced to his days as a toddler, when he was surrounded by scholarly thought.

His father, David, was attending law school when Colin was born and his mother, Veda, was working toward a doctorate degree.

No wonder the kid was reaching for a No. 2 pencil instead of a wagon.

“A lot of it’s by example,” said David, who practices law in the health sector. “He saw we emphasized education from a very early age.”

As deft as he has become at composing essays and explicating prose, Ward-Henninger struggles under the magnitude of a certain athletic brain-teaser: baseball or basketball?

The question is constantly lobbed his direction.

With a fastball in the mid-80s, Ward-Henninger has drawn interest from Brown, Pennsylvania, Boston College and Santa Clara.

He’s heard from Columbia and UC Santa Cruz for basketball.

Which college, and sport, will he choose?.

“At certain times, there’s nothing I love more than basketball because of the fans and the teammates,” he said. “But baseball’s got that one-on-one thing going, where it’s you and the batter. It’s easier to concentrate and kind of lose yourself in it.”

Here’s a hint: Ward-Henninger wrote college-application essays on a victory against Montclair Prep in the basketball playoffs last season.

Ward-Henninger had 23 points and 15 rebounds during the Griffins’ 70-66 victory in front of a crowd so dense that former NBA All-Star Marques Johnson reportedly had trouble getting in despite the fact his son, Josiah, played for Montclair Prep.

“It was the most amazing experience of my life,” Ward-Henninger said. “The whole game was back and forth, and the fans ran onto the court afterwards. It was life-changing. The things you can achieve are amazing.”

It was an experience that almost didn’t happen.

After his freshman year at Buckley, Ward-Henninger contemplated transferring from the small Sherman Oaks school of 290 high school students. Schools with bigger-name athletic programs were beckoning.

Basketball Coach Dan Haasch partly understood what Ward-Henninger was thinking. Buckley, which does not have a football team, is better known for academics than athletics.

“Let’s face it, we’re not going to get the 48-point headlines here,” Haasch said. “At this school, we’re not going to get a true 6-10 center to come through.”

Ward-Henninger lives in Woodland Hills, in the attendance area of Taft, but didn’t give much thought to attending the public school. Instead, he considered Chaminade, Harvard-Westlake and Notre Dame.

“He was honest with me that he was looking around,” Haasch said. “Like anyone else his age, he wanted to be recognized for his efforts. We sat down with him and told him we were going to build a program. When he decided to stay, he brought us instant credibility.”

With Ward-Henninger leading the way, Buckley was the Liberty League champion last season, finishing with a 23-3 record.

This season appears no different. The Griffins (17-1, 8-0) have had little trouble with opponents as they head into a key game tonight against Providence (12-6, 8-1).

Ward-Henninger, who has a knack for making the right play at the right time--he scored with 15 seconds left in the playoff victory over Montclair Prep--will be on the clock again.

Tick, tick, tick.