CONWAY -- At age 17, on his first assignment as a budding sports reporter, Clay Henry was frozen at the keyboard in the old Arkansas Gazette newsroom.
"I really wasn't a writer, so I didn't have writer's block. I just had block," Henry said Saturday night.
Legendary writer Jim Bailey came to his side, scooted Henry from his chair and asked him to give him the details and notes. Henry remembers Bailey writing a story about the Little Rock Hall vs. Little Rock Central basketball game in about three minutes, then told the young reporter to go home.
The next day in English class at Little Rock Central, Henry saw a word written on the blackboard. His teacher asked him what it meant.
"I've never seen the word," he said. "Then, the teacher told me it was in the first sentence of my story in that morning's Gazette."
Years later, Henry looked at Bailey in the audience Saturday night at the Arkansas Sportscasters and Sportswriters Hall of Fame banquet and said, "I still don't know what it means."
But Henry, the publisher of Hawgs Illustrated for 23 years, learned that night and many others what it's like to learn and be mentored by skilled professionals. It was those early lessons that paved the way for Saturday's Hall of Fame induction.
He is the eighth sportswriter inductee and joins his father, the late Orville Henry, as the first father-son team in the Hall. He also joins former Gazette staffers Bailey, Harry King, Jerry McConnell, Wadie Moore, Joe Mosby and the Conway Log Cabin Democrat's David McCollum in the elite group.
"I grew up with great people and working and reading great writers," Henry said at the induction banquet at the Centennial Special Events Center. "They were my family. I didn't have to have anybody tell me how to do the job. I just did what they did."
Henry formerly worked for the Gazette, the Log Cabin Democrat and the Tulsa World before birthing Hawgs Illustrated, a magazine, with daily-updated website on the Razorbacks, that has won multiple awards from the College Sports Publishers Association.
"I learned to surround yourself with good people," he said. "Great people make you look great."
Bo Mattingly, a close friend whom Henry joins on a Northwest Arkansas-based radio talk show, said Henry's skill goes beyond just putting words on paper.
"He has the uncanny ability to find the one thing nobody is talking about and present not only the information but the background and what it means," said Mattingly in introducing Henry. "And he does it all while holding to his principles, convictions and judgment. I admire the way in goes about his business. He is conscientious and thorough. And the Henry way is doing things the right way even though nobody is looking."
Mattingly read a letter from broadcaster and NFL analyst Chris Mortensen, congratulating Henry and expounding on his subjects' ability to trust him and Henry's ability to provide good, accurate information.
Mattingly said Henry maintains his principles through all relationships in life, including a deep love for his family.
"If he knows you, chances are he has done something for you and it may be something you may not even know about," Mattingly said.
The sportscaster inducted was the late St. Louis Cardinal star and later legendary broadcaster Dizzy Dean. He joins the late Paul Eells, the late Bud Campbell, the late Jim Elder, the late Pat Summerall , Frank Broyles, Conway broadcaster Mike Harrison and KATV (Little Rock) sports director Steve Sullivan in that segment of the Hall.
Clyde Scott, known as one of the best athletes ever in Arkansas, was presented a Lifetime Achievement Award.
Sports on 07/14/2014