It might have been the slowest lap of her high school career,
but it’s one that UCLA’s Monique Henderson will
remember forever.
A victory lap ““ the culmination of a day in which
Henderson ““ then a 17-year-old junior at San Diego Morse High
School ““ captured the state 400-meter championship in a
junior national record 50.74 seconds, punctuating perhaps the
greatest individual season for a prep sprinter in California
history.
But Henderson’s sudden ascent into the pantheon of
American track and field came with a steep price.
Having her face splashed across the pages of “Sports
Illustrated” and “USA Today” before she could
even register to vote saddled Henderson with the weight of
unattainable expectations ““ a burden she still bears three
years later as she nears the end of her sophomore season at
UCLA.
“It has been hard, but I think I put more pressure on
myself than anyone else does,” Henderson said. “I knew
in college things probably wouldn’t go exactly the way that
they did in high school, and they haven’t.”
At least not yet.
A four-time state champion in the 400m, Henderson arrived in
Westwood as Southern California’s most decorated high school
sprinter since Marion Jones. Although she had only lost one 400m
race in her entire prep career, Henderson discovered that an off
day can be very costly at the collegiate level.
After posting the No. 2 mark in the nation in the 400m as a
freshman and earning Pac-10 Newcomer of the Year honors, Henderson
faltered at last year’s NCAA Championships in Baton Rouge.
She placed seventh in the event in a sluggish 52.31 seconds ““
more than a full second slower than her best marks in high
school.
“It was very disappointing for her,” said Adam
Henderson, Monique’s father and a youth track and field coach
in San Diego. “She had to look in the mirror, and ask
herself, “˜Am I still good enough to run?'”
For some, seventh in the nation would have been cause for
celebration, but for a world-class sprinter like Henderson, it was
a gut-check ““ a test of her will.
After winning the 2001 state championship in 51.34 seconds,
nearly a full second faster than NCAA Champion Allison Beckford
(52.33), finishing seventh was just not good enough.
“It was terribly disappointing,” Henderson said.
“It was just a horrible race. Every day I wish I could do it
over again, and that’s what motivates me to prove to everyone
that was just a bad day for me.”
Back in high school, bad days were not even an issue.
After she exploded onto the San Diego prep scene in 1997,
Henderson was simply dominating, whether she was in top form or
not.
She lowered her personal record by a full second every year
until her senior year, and became the first high school athlete to
make the U.S. Olympic Track team in 24 years ““ albeit as an
alternate on the 4x400m relay team.
But all of that success left her with an impossible challenge
““ getting even faster.
Although Henderson knew that it would take a perfect set of
circumstances for her to match her record-breaking mark, it has
still been frustrating for her not to see tangible proof that she
is improving.
“I think it’s been hard on her,” said Gary
MacDonald, Henderson’s former high school coach. “I
know she’s a bit disappointed, but it’s certainly not
due to her work ethic. She can’t be expected to drop a second
every year because she would be challenging the world record by the
age of 20.”
Although Henderson’s season best in the 400m this year
““ 52.23 seconds ““ puts her seventh on the national
charts, both she and UCLA head coach Jeanette Bolden believe she is
capable of far more.
Bolden has slowed the pace of her training to compensate for the
length of the season, so Henderson is just beginning to hit her
stride.
Nonetheless her chance at redemption will not come until the
NCAA Championships next month in Sacramento. The challenge for her
will be to regain the form she displayed at the state championship
meet her junior season in high school when a sub-51-second 400m
etched her name indelibly into track and field lore.
“You don’t get days like that very often, and I am
just waiting for that day to come again,” Henderson said.
“I’ve got three more years ““ so one of them
should be good for me.”