Little 'Hollywood' left in Henderson (2024)

AUSTIN, Texas -- Forget for a moment everything you've everheard about Thomas "Hollywood" Henderson.

	Before winning the lottery, Thomas Henderson raised $250,000 to build East Side Field in Austin.

Forget about him being a first-round draft pick of the DallasCowboys and playing in three Super Bowls in his first four years.

Forget that he snorted cocaine on the sideline during a SuperBowl, then became the first NFL player to confess his addiction,seek treatment and return to pro football.

Forget his arrest for having sex with two underaged girls andthe two years, four months in prison that finally got him to soberup.

Even forget that he recently won a $28 million Texas Lotteryjackpot.

The past tells little about the man he is now.

Meet the new Thomas Henderson: Philanthropist. Entrepreneur.Drug-free for more than 16 years.

"I know how far out there Thomas was, and if he continued to beout there he wouldn't even be alive today," former Cowboysreceiver Drew Pearson said. "But he's turned his life around andhe's using the negatives, the adversity, the obstacles he had andhe's turning them into positives.

"I had a lot of teammates I was proud to say I played with. Atthe time I played with Thomas, I wasn't proud to say that. Now,without hesitation, I'm proud to say that Thomas Henderson is afriend of mine."

Building East Austin's field of dreams
Several days a week, the 47-year-old Henderson climbs into histruck, drives to East Austin and parks on a hill overlooking hisold high school football field.

On some visits, he never unbuckles his seat belt. He just letshis eyes drift down the sloping grass to the seven-lane runningtrack and the green playing field inside that orange oval.

He gazes at the new bleachers, the new lights, the newscoreboard. Anderson High closed in 1971, but the ticket booth andfieldhouse shine with fresh coats of yellow and black paint.

The Yellowjacket logo is on a sign at the front gate and is moreprominent on the fieldhouse. That sneering insect is as menacingnow as it was when Henderson wore it, or when Dick "Night Train"Lane had it on his helmet a generation earlier.

Odds are, somebody is there. Maybe a youth football team.Possibly a track team or just some locals trying to stay in shape.

Henderson just stares and smiles, hoping nobody sees him. Thisplace is his gift, you see, the vision he turned into a realitylong before buying that slip of paper with 5-8-17-35-38-41 on it.

Where others saw an abandoned field overrun by 6-foot-high grassand cracking asphalt, Henderson saw a place where kids could playand stay out of the kind of trouble he got into as a youth.

"I just look at it and say, 'That's good,"' he said. "Then Ipull off and go home."

Living in the fast lane
Henderson's mother was three weeks shy of her 16th birthday whenhe was born. His father, a 17-year-old enlistee at a nearby AirForce Base, was shipped to Korea once his superiors learned of thepregnancy, and he never developed a bond with his son.

The early influences for young Thomas were drug dealers, poolhustlers, drunks, pimps and thieves. He saw his best friend, anaccomplished burglar, shot to death playing Russian Roulette in thehigh school parking lot.

Henderson knew he was part of a bad scene, so he moved toOklahoma, where he became a star defensive end in high school andat Langston University.

In 1975, the Cowboys made him the 18th overall draft pick. Theteam had built a dynasty by finding big-time players at smallschools, but it usually took them in later rounds.

The 6-foot-2, 225-pound Henderson became such a good linebackerthat Dick Butkus once called him one of the league's best. LawrenceTaylor was so impressed that he wore No. 56, Henderson's number.

Being a Cowboy gave Henderson access to whatever he wanted:women, cars, drugs. And he wanted it all. Often.

Early in his third year, teammates dubbed him "Hollywood"because of his limousine-loving lifestyle. The name stuck because,well, it fit a guy who once went to the Grammys with one of thePointer Sisters and snorted cocaine with celebrities.

Football remained Henderson's main stage, but his interviewscould be even more entertaining. Before Dallas played Pittsburgh inthe 1979 Super Bowl, he said: "Terry Bradshaw couldn't spell 'cat'if you spotted him the 'c' and the 'a."'

Henderson's career peaked at that time. Then drugs slowly tookover his life. He'd been using for years, but now he couldn't stop.

He learned how to get even higher during that Super Bowl week byinhaling liquefied cocaine through a nose-spray bottle. He playedagainst the Steelers with the bottle inside a pocket on his uniformpants and took whiffs during the game. The Cowboys lost 35-31.

The next season, Dallas cut him just before Thanksgiving after adrug-induced rage.

He was in and out of San Francisco without playing a game earlyin 1980, then spent the rest of that season with the HoustonOilers. He was hurt, high or both most of his time in Houston.

Henderson realized he needed help, so he asked the NFL. Theleague sent him to a rehab center in Arizona, but it didn't work.

The Miami Dolphins thought he was clean and signed him in 1981.In the final preseason game, he broke his neck and his career wasover. He was 28.

Despite being unemployed, addicted and nearly broke, Hendersonmanaged to keep going for two years -- until November 1983, when hewas arrested on charges of having sex with two minors.

Henderson made things worse by trying to pay them to get thecharges dropped. He then pleaded no contest to sexual assault andbribery and was sentenced to prison for four years, eight months.

After serving half his term, Henderson walked out a changed man.He'd kicked his habit and dedicated his life to making sure othersgot off drugs.

Saint it ain't so?
Since returning to Austin, Henderson has become known as a sortof guardian angel. He's dropped into soup kitchens and given out$1,000, two bucks at a time, and he's bumped into a bus salesmanand insisted on picking up half of a church's $2,200 tab.

"As long as I've been in Austin -- and that's since 1941 -- Idon't know anybody that's done more for East Austin than HollywoodHenderson," said Rooster Andrews, owner of a sporting-goods chain.

Henderson also does motivational speaking, using his gift forspeech to tell his own story. He wants kids to learn from hismistakes and convicts to see there is a way out.

He sells tapes and videos of his speeches and charges businesses$15,000 per appearance. His fee was $7,500 before he won thelottery, but now it all goes to his charity, East Side YouthServices & Street Outreach. Besides, he figures, the increase isworth it because his story is now twice as good.

Henderson made his first post-lottery speech a few weeks ago atFreedom Missionary Baptist Church in Dallas. He worked in hisnewfound riches to add to his do-gooder message.

"He was captivating," said the Rev. Mack T. Flemmings.

Yet not everybody feels warm-and-fuzzy about the new Henderson.

Skeptics wonder whether his transformation is real. His criticsaren't the vocal type, just folks who hear about his deeds andinstinctively look for ulterior motives.

"I guess he has to live with things like that because of hispast," Pearson said. "But the people who think those thingscertainly don't know what Thomas Henderson is all about now. Thoseof us who have seen it don't have to be convinced.

"I'm not trying to make Thomas out to be a saint, but some ofthe things he does are saintly."

Henderson pays no mind to detractors.

"What people may think of me is not my business," he said in asoft, serious tone. "What I think of me is pretty importantbecause I'm the one who has to live in here.

"I have become the guy I am because of what I went through, butI am not my mistakes. I'm pretty pleased with who I've become."

Many doubters became believers in 1997 when Henderson finishedthe youth football field and decided to start on the track. He knewit would take a lot of money, so he decided to do something radical-- a weeklong hunger strike.

"People thought he was crazy," said Howard Ware, track coachof Huston-Tillotson College and the Austin Striders junior Olympicteam, both of which train at the track. "There wasn't really muchsupport at first. But once they saw he was serious, then Bam!"

Henderson raised $250,000 and used it to build the rubberizedtrack, which was finished last year.

That's the ticket
People don't call him Hollywood anymore. At least, not anyonewho knows him.

"Hollywood was sort of an alter ego of drug addiction andwomen. Hollywood never played football. He was hanging out withMarvin Gaye and doing wild things," Henderson said.

He can't completely shun it, though. It gives him namerecognition in the business world, allowing him to avoid what hecalls the abyss of all the Tom Hendersons out there.

"I can't have it both ways," he said.

Henderson sounds as if he's back in his "Hollywood" mode whenhe says he always believed he would win the lottery. Spending$20,000 on tickets over the last five years certainly improved hisodds.

"I sort of had a cosmic understanding that I was going towin," he said. "Sometimes, it'd be like $70 million and I wouldsit up at night and do the math to figure out what I'd do with themoney. And I've done exactly what I said I would do in my dryrun."

On March 22, Henderson went to Nau's Pharmacy to pick up somemedicine to help fight bronchitis. He saw the jackpot was $28million and asked for $100 in tickets.

The next evening, he was driving to a friend's house after around of golf when his ex-wife called to say the winning ticket wassold at Nau's. His stack of tickets was still on the front seat ofhis truck, where he'd left them the night before.

The magic numbers, picked by a computer, were on the fourth offive lines on the eighth of his 20 tickets.

A week later, he got a check for $14,491,235 because he chose alump-sum payout rather than the full amount over 25 years. Aftertaxes, there's $10,433,690 for the newly formed HHH 56 InvestmentsLtd.

The Hs are all Henderson, one each for him and his daughters,21-year-old Thomesa Holly and 6-year-old Dalis. Thomesa has a21-month-old daughter named Taylor, making Henderson a grandfather.

"I prefer Big Daddy," he said, laughing.

He remains close with his mother, Violet Faye, taking care ofher with the money he's made -- or won -- over the years.

Henderson estimates he's given $400,000 to friends and family,mostly in $10,000 chunks because that's the most anyone can receivewithout being taxed. The checks are sent with a note that reads,"Don't ask me for any more money."

He said the most satisfying gift went to someone whose name hedidn't even know: Mike Huffman, the cashier at Nau's Pharmacy whosold the winning ticket.

"I was just amazed," said Huffman, who at 49 plans to use themoney to return to college after a 22-year layoff and hopes tobecome an elementary school teacher. "I told him I knew he was afootball player, but now he's my favorite lottery player."

Henderson has done little for himself. No new house, yacht orremote island. Not even a new set of golf clubs.

His biggest purchase was a 1996 Mercedes 600 sedan that hebought from a friend.

"It's the model I've always wanted, but never wanted to stretchout and buy," he said.

Don't get the impression that Henderson has become shy.

He still considers himself among the best linebackers in NFLhistory. He estimates that if he were playing today, his signingbonus alone would be more than $10 million with annual salaries ofaround $4 million. His biggest Dallas contract paid $650,000 overfive years; he was cut three years into it.

In general, though, Henderson's ego seems in check.

At Anderson High, the only hints of his involvement are a signthat lists T.H. Henderson as the developer and a fieldhouseinscription that reads: East Side Field, Est. 1994 by E.S.Y.S.S.O.-- T.H.H.

He picked up his lottery winnings without holding thetraditional winner's news conference, turned down dozens of offersto be on national TV and says he's not interested in making a movieabout his life.

"The only film I want to do now is one my little industrialfilms that would be called 'Alcohol Doesn't Come WithInstructions,"' he said.

He also has no plans to update his 1987 autobiography, "Out ofControl -- Confessions of an NFL Casualty."

Henderson tried running for a city council seat in January, thenlearned he was ineligible because of his felony record.

He plans to spoil his daughters, play golf and continue makingdonations.

He wants to subsidize Huston-Tillotson's athletic budget tocover food, clothing and equipment costs, and he and Thomesa willsoon start a business to provide low-cost housing for first-timehome buyers.

He'd also like to persuade pro athletes to do more for theircommunities than signing autographs and checks.

"Your energy, your time, your money and your labor is the mostimportant contribution you can make," Henderson said.

And there is still work to be done at East Side Field -- morebleachers, more storage and a playground for children too young forfootball or track.

"Why did I do all this?" Henderson said. "I don't quite knowwhere the notion came from to grab a shovel and build somethingthat doesn't belong to me.

"But I understand now that it's the greatest thing I've everdone. Playing for the Cowboys is not the greatest thing, winningthe lottery is not the greatest thing. Building that facility,which will be there when I'm dead and gone, that's the greatestaccomplishment of my life."