By the dawn's early light

Billy Henderson coached me up to become a 'morning person'

Ed Grisamore with Coach Billy Henderson at his 89th birthday party in Athens in 2017. (Photo by Delinda Grisamore)

I never played football for Coach Billy Henderson, but he spent a lot of time “coaching me up.’’

He taught me to be punctual. Always arrive 15 minutes early to every appointment. If you’re five minutes early, you’re 10 minutes late.

He was a model of organization and discipline. He planned his day on every line of a yellow legal pad.  

And he taught me to be a morning person. 

I have been up since 5:30 a.m. this morning. I don’t have to be anywhere at a certain time. It has been my routine for more than half my life now. There are some days when I’m up before the roosters. So I put on the coffee pot for them.

I am thinking about Coach Henderson today. He came into the world on June 2, 1928. Today would be his 97th birthday. He has left a hole in our hearts since he left us on Valentine’s Day seven years ago.

When Henderson was the head football coach at Clarke Central in Athens, he told me he arrived at his office at 5 a.m. every morning. Long before the janitors even got to the school, he studied game film, took notes and meticulously planned the day's practice schedule.

After I went to Athens to interview before the state championship game, I remember waking up early the next morning and looking at the clock. It was 5 a.m.

"I'm lying here in bed,'' I thought, "and Coach Henderson is already hard at work.''

So I got up. Gradually, I began to discipline myself to arise each day at 5 a.m. Soon, I began to savor that time of the day. It was my time.

It’s still my time. I write. I read. I go for a walk. The quiet of dawn is my most precious, energetic and creative time of the day. Ernest Hemingway once said he would "write every morning as soon after the first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you, and it is cool or cold, and you come to your work and warm as you write.''

I share a common bond with the farmers, the cooks at the Waffle House … and football coaches.

I owe so much of who I am to Coach Henderson.

Someone got up early to write those words.

I was honored to write and publish Coach Henderson’s biography in 2005.