By Joseph Staszewski
The sports community lost one of its good guys.
Newsday sports writer Marcus Henry, 41, died unexpectedly at his home in Hempstead, L.I., last week.
Henry, who began working with the paper in 2003, was a fixture on the Queens sports scene until Newsday decreased its coverage the borough in 2006 to focus on Long Island. He left an indelible impression on the people he met by being himself: honest, jovial and caring.
“Marcus was the all-time teddy bear,” Cardozo boys’ basketball Coach Ron Naclerio said. “He loved everybody. He was fair with everybody. He knew so much about everybody that he covered. You became a friend of his even though it was a job.”
Henry, also an esteemed boxing writer, made it easy to get along with him. I worked with him for two years at Newsday. There was always a smile or a hearty laugh, but most of all there was a great passion and enjoyment for what he did, and that was palpable. You connected with him and appreciated his genuineness.
“God [has] called upon a good friend and a great writer,” former Springfield Gardens basketball star Charles Jenkins wrote on Facebook. “My time in high school as well as college, Marcus Henry did [a] great job letting people know who I am. Will always appreciate the relationship we had.”
Henry, who spent his early childhood in Brooklyn and the Bronx, was a former athlete himself. He was a standout football player at Baldwin High School and played a year at Temple University before a knee injury ended his career. Henry understood what it meant to be an athlete and wanted to do whatever he could to help the kids he covered.
“I think for some people when they get the high school beat they look at it as a stepping stone to move on to something else,” said Paul Gilvary, the former Holy Cross boys’ basketball coach and current CHSAA basketball commissioner. “They do it because they have to. Other guys seem to really embrace the idea of covering high school sports. I think he was one who really enjoyed covering high school sports.”
Added legendary Campus Magnet Coach Charles Granby, “When you are writing high school sports, you have to know the kids. He always tried to give them their due.”
Former high school teammate Kyle McKenna, a Floral Park resident and the Brooklyn Tech football coach, said Henry was genuinely disappointed when Newsday stopped covering Queens. His relationship with the borough didn’t end, though. Henry, while working on Newsday’s Long Island desk, would still get calls from the borough’s coaches to tell him about a player or their team’s success. Henry never stopped caring about the people he met.
“Anytime we talked he asked me, like, who was good, who was coming out, who might be a college football player?” McKenna said.
It was things like that made people gravitate to Henry. As a fellow writer, he made the craft look easy at times. You wanted to get to a point where you felt you did your job well enough to have the type of relationships he had with others.
More than anything, Henry was a person to model yourself after, both in his professionalism and how he treated people. There was no ego, no malice — just a joy for life and genuine interest in others.
“Marcus always brought a smile to your face,” St. John’s University women’s basketball Coach Joe Tartamella said.
Anyone who knew Henry was better for it. He taught you how to enjoy what you had in life. You always respected what he did and how he carried himself while doing it.
“I have to say that’s the greatest thing for a writer, when the people you’re writing about fall in love with you,” Naclerio said. “He was just a great guy.”
