“If the women were playing — and my niece plays high school up in Cleveland — she’d say ‘Ball’ and then say ‘Claire,’” recounted Day Henderson in reference to Claire Coljohn, a freshman guard last season on the Holy Name varsity in Parma Heights.
As she thought about her daughter’s basketball lexicon, Day Henderson started to laugh:
“I’m like, ‘OK Jaye, now it’s gonna be ‘Ball…Mama!’ She’s going to have to remember Mom is back coaching, too.’”
Last Monday, Tamika Williams-Jeter, the head coach of the Dayton women’s team, announced Day Henderson — a cornerstone of the Miami RedHawks women’s program for a decade and a half that included Hall of Fame honors for her playing days and then 11 years as an assistant coach before moving on to IUPUI and most recently to Akron for five years — had been added to the her staff.
Day Henderson’s official title is assistant coach/chief of staff.
The past two years, the underperforming Flyers have not been what UD is used to and certainly not what Williams-Jeter has been a part of in her long, celebrated hoops career.
In the first two years of Williams-Jeter’s tenure, the Flyers ― riddled with transfers before she took over and a talent dearth since — have gone 19-40.
This season the roster has been overhauled with five promising transfers — including guard Rikki Harris, a 5-foot-10 grad student who played 117 games for Ohio State, and Nicole Stephens, a senior point guard from Columbia who came out Pickerington Central High School.
Three freshmen also have joined the mix and one, 6-foot-2 Molly O’Riordon from Barrington, Illinois, already is catching people’s eyes in drills.
But the most important addition to the program this season just may be Day Henderson, who spent last season off the sidelines and sitting with Jaye in Section 110 of UD Arena at the men’s games as the UD pep band performed right next to them.
“We were in the fun section,” Day Henderson laughed. “My daughter loves the band. She learned the Dayton chants. It was hilarious.”
Jeremaine agreed: “One of the first things she ever said was ‘Oh…Oh…Oh…Oh….N! She loves that Go Dayton Flyers chant where they spell out Dayton.”
While Jaye expands her cheering repertoire, her mom hopes to help give fans of the women’s team something to finally cheer about this season.
She been brought on board to mentor younger coaches on the staff, be a sounding board and second opinion for Williams-Jeter, and also help develop players the way she did at her other stops.
That latter list includes Miami’s Kirsten Olowinski and Laura Markwood, two of the RedHawks greatest rebounders ever; IUPUI’s Macee Williams, who was named the Horizon League Freshman of the Year the season she was tutored by Day Henderson; and Akron’s Mid-American Conference Player of the Year Jordyn Dawson and All-MAC selections Haliegh Reinoehl and Reagan Bass.
“We struck gold on this one,” Williams-Jeter said of adding Day Henderson to the program. “I wasn’t the only person who called her. She could have gotten a lot of other jobs.
“She’s from Ohio (Independence), had a Hall of Fame career at Miami, and has worked in the region. All that will be helpful from a recruiting standpoint.
“And she has almost 20 years as a college coach. She’ll bring experience to the staff and she’ll push me in places that will help me.”
Jermaine Henderson, who spent 25 years as an assistant coach at Miami, Missouri State, Kansas State and Cleveland State, joined Anthony Grant’s staff last season .
At the same time, Day Henderson was one of the finalists for the suddenly vacated Miami women’s job last spring, a position that eventually went to Glenn Box.
With a young child, a move to Dayton and a new job for her husband, Day Henderson ended up taking what she called “a transition year.”
“She wasn’t on a staff, but she definitely watched games harder,” Jermaine said. “She’s a basketball junkie. She loves the game, and she caught a lot of them last year.
“She was sharpening her axe, that’s how I put it. I’d say she grew immensely watching different styles from different teams and coaches.
“She’s got great friendships with kids she coached, and she watched some of them who had transferred to other schools. She went up and saw Notre Dame up close. Her good friend (and former RedHawks’ assistant) Heather Oesterle was an assistant there and now is at Stanford.
“She caught a Caitlin Clark game, went to Ohio State and was especially drawn here to the UD women’s program.”
Williams-Jeter welcomed her interest:
“She asked me if I minded if she came and watched practice and she was here a handful of times. She watched our games too, and sometimes before a game or after, I’d get a text from her.
“We built a relationship like that and halfway through the season I got her to meet Kalisha (assistant coach Kalisha Keane) and she mentored her.
“Colleen and I are close to the same age, we’re both moms, and we got to know each other. It was really cool.”
Hall of Fame career at Miami
Day Henderson was drawn in by UD once before.
A celebrated player at Holy Name High School, she narrowed her recruiting list to Princeton, Dayton and Miami.
The Flyers, then coached by Jaci Clark, were a below .500 program then, but she saw potential. The academics UD offered were important too and she said there was also a link because she had gone to a Catholic high school. But Miami, then coached by Maria Fantanarosa, turned her head the most, she said:
“When you walk onto the campus there, it’s hard to say anything bad about it. And I liked the fact they had (Division I) football. You got the whole college experience.
“Ben Roethlisberger came in the same year I did, and Wally Szczerbiak had just graduated, and that had been great for marketing the basketball programs and the school.
“Maria was putting together a good team and the MAC was solid then and it seemed like a good fit.”
Was it ever.
She was a four-time letterwinner and a three-time team captain. She became the program’s first-ever Academic All-American and her efforts on the court — which include 1,269 career points, 794 rebounds and an 80.5 free throw percentage — still have her among the all-time leaders in seven categories of RedHawks women’s basketball.
She was enshrined in the Miami Hall of Fame in 2015.
After a year playing professionally in Germany , she was lured back to Miami by strength coach Dan Dalrymple — now with the Denver Broncos — to become his female counterpart in the weight room.
A year later, Fantanarosa asked her to join her staff and later she stayed on when Cleve Wright took over the program.
Credit: Greg Lynch
Credit: Greg Lynch
When he was fired, she moved to IUPUI for a season and then was recruited to Akron, where she was the associate head coach.
Along the way she reconnected with Henderson, also a former Miami fixture. He played there for Herb Sendek and then Charlie Coles and after his 1997 graduation, he joined Coles’ staff for 15 seasons and became his right-hand man.
When medical issues briefly forced Coles from the bench, Henderson took over the team.
He was especially dedicated to Coles, who had become like a father figure to him.
Henderson had come to Oxford from Columbus, where he had been the product of young teen parents. His mom was 15 when he was born. His dad, 13.
“Colleen and I come from two totally different families,” Henderson said. “And I’m, not just talking ethnically, I mean background.
“Her mom and dad have been together their whole lives. They have six college graduates.”
Colleen has an impressive academic resume. Along with a B.A in English/Language Arts, she has a master’s in sports studies and a PhD in Educational Leadership.
“She understands where I’m from and who I am and I liked that,” Jermaine said. “She was caring and smart and beautiful. I liked that she was so steady.”
In turn Day Henderson said she was drawn by Jermaine’s “heart”
“Thats the biggest thing,” she said. “He’s a giver and has as real willingness to do things for others.’
She started to chuckle: “And Charlie wanted us together. When I’d come by, he’d tease Jermaine and call out ‘Colleeeen’s here!’”
The two married in August of 2020 — in Oxford they call that a Miami Merger when two grads wed — and Jaye was born two years later.
When they relocated to Dayton, Day Henderson knew a little about UD Arena. She had won here as an assistant coach when her Miami and Akron teams both came in and beat the Flyers.
Last year though, she got a new perspective, watching the men’s games in an arena that was sold out game after game, her husband said:
“She learned a lot about the pageantry of UD basketball.”
Eager to get back on the sidelines
Day Henderson said she missed coaching — both from the camaraderie you get with a team and from the competition aspect: “There’s nothing like the competition that comes with college basketball. You can’t replicate that.
“I was definitely eager to get back around a team and to get to know the student athletes.”
While she said her return is “like riding a bike,” this time she admitted she needs help to keep pedaling:
“This summer I’m using a lot of students who are home from school to help with Jaye. Ricardo (Greer), his daughter Madison, watches her a lot.
“And right now Olivia Brown, one of the Wright State players who was at Akron when I was there, is with her.
“I think it’s kind of cool she gets to have some time, some fun with these people. I think they are cool role models for her to be around.”
When the UD women play their home games this season, she said Jermaine — if the men are in town — will be in the stands with Jaye.
This isn’t saying Dad is feeling the pressure, but he did joke: “I keep trying to tell (Colleen) she doesn’t have to show me up every chance she gets.
“She has been an incredible teacher and disciplinarian with our daughter.
“It’s crazy. I came in one day a couple of months ago and Jaye knew her colors and started giving them to me.
“I’ll be truthful. I started crying.
“I came in the office and told the staff, ‘I’ve contributed nothing to our daughter’s academic success. My wife’s been a rock star with that.”
Now the Flyers women hope she’s the same with them on the court.
And it all starts with a little girl and her two, new important words:
“Ball…Mama.”
About the Author