Tom Henderson

Teacher/Coach Tom Henderson was an excellent History Teacher and Tennis Coach at Ottawa High School, achieving legendary status in establishing the Ottawa High School Tennis program as truly unique within the State of Illinois. He was the department head for the Social Science Department for many years and during his career was an Assistant Varsity Basketball coach and head swimming coach. He coached both Boy’s and Girl’s tennis, and his teams rarely lost a dual meet and typically won both the Conference and Sectional titles. Since his initial year of coaching at Ottawa in 1958, the Boy’s team won 36 sectional titles, 81.8% of the Sectionals that they participated in, capturing at one point in the sixties and seventies, 16 consecutive Sectional titles, and 9 consecutive top 10 finishes in the State Tournament. Overall, his Boy’s teams finished in the top 10 in Illinois, 16 times which was more than 36% of the years in which they participated. The Ottawa Girl’s teams had an even more consistent record of Sectional Titles, winning 23 over a 26 year span, 88.5% of the time, and finished in the top 10 in the State Tournament on 2 occasions. He has been inducted into the Illinois Coaches Hall of Fame, and the Illinois State University Athletic Hall of Fame. He is one of 3 coaches in the State of Illinois to amass in excess of 600 tennis victories, and was voted Coach of the Year on more than one occasion. Well over 70 Ottawa athletes have received scholarship assistance for tennis at various Universities. Henderson was also an excellent player in his own right, capturing more than 100 individual trophies during his own playing career.