Getting to the pros the Henry family plan

Carl lasted until 1993, bouncing around between Spain, Italy and Belgium. His young family was with him, but he didn’t bring many good basketball memories home.

“It was a job,” Carl says.

Since then, Carl has often wondered how good he could have been if he had started getting serious about basketball earlier in life. Maybe then he’d have gotten those calls from the big-time coaches, guys with reputations like Self’s.

A minute has passed since Self’s call, and Carl picks up his phone.

“You know what?” Carl says. “I better call that guy back.”

Carl likes Self. Sure, his family’s odyssey to Kansas hasn’t been smooth, but he’s not trying to ruffle the feathers of the head Jayhawk.

“Hey, Coach,” Carl says.

It appears Self is just checking in.

“We’ve been doing two-a-days,” Carl reports. “Had them on the court doing a lot of shooting drills.”

Carl is trying to put Self at ease. He hangs up the phone. His stomach is growling. It’s time for another trip through the buffet line.

• • •

Just like their future teammates at Kansas, the Henry boys are playing video games to relax. Unlike their teammates, they are gaming in a fully-furnished, two-story condo that some men would have to work their entire lives to buy.

C.J., who labored in the minors for three years after deciding to play pro baseball instead of basketball at KU in 2005, bought the place with his own money. There’s a Jacuzzi in the bathroom, sophisticated art on the walls and a massive flat-screen TV mounted high in the living room. C.J. drives a Range Rover with “HENRY” etched into the rear door. Xavier, while not yet a professional, drives a Hummer.

“For Xavier, he needs the leg room,” Carl says.

Truly, this is all the Henry boys know. Carl raised his sons to be professional athletes, and he’s half of the way there. After his Europe experience, he wasn’t going to leave anything to chance.

“I kind of raised them … you gotta do this, this, this and this,” Carl says. “You can’t be waiting around to do it. You gotta do it now.”

From the time they were seventh-graders, Carl had them doing extra work outside of practice.

“Jump rope a thousand in the morning at like 6 o’clock, push-ups in between your sets of jump rope,” C.J. recalls. “Or he’d make you do it at night. You could already be asleep, and he’d say, ‘You get that in today? No? It’s time.’ ”

With C.J. and Xavier, work became second nature, merging with good genes And before long, Carl’s plan started to fall into place. C.J., a 6-foot-3 point guard, had committed to Self and Kansas. One thing Carl didn’t expect was the Yankees to make C.J. their first-round pick in the 2005 draft. C.J. signed for a $1.575 million bonus and left basketball behind.

Through it all, Carl and Barbara spent their summers switching off between touring small-time ballparks with C.J. and attending AAU basketball events with Xavier.

“There’s a lot of sacrifices,” Barbara says.

C.J. injured his neck in spring training in 2008 and decided to return to basketball a year before Xavier would be a freshman. Xavier favored Memphis and Kansas, so C.J. would choose one of the two. By August, he had picked the Tigers because of coach John Calipari’s wide-open style and dribble-drive offense. The family wasn’t insisting that Xavier choose the same school as C.J., but the brothers had always wanted to play together. Accordingly, Xavier also signed with Memphis.

To reach Kansas reporter J. Brady McCollough, call 816-234-4363 or send e-mail to jmccollough@kcstar.com

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