New Iowa women’s basketball assistant Randi Henderson has winning history with Jan Jensen

Randi Henderson got one year with Jan Jensen as her women’s basketball position coach at Iowa, enough time for them to win a Big Ten tournament together.

“The post whisperer,” Henderson called Jensen Tuesday.

Henderson, then Randi Peterson, did very well as a center (13.2 points per game, 8.8 rebounds) in her 2000-01 senior season at Iowa. She became an All-Big Ten first-teamer on the first Lisa Bluder-coached Hawkeyes team. Iowa won 21 games, and reached the second round of the NCAA tournament after winning the Big Ten tourney.

The coaching staff, Henderson recalled, was “united, intense, and really clear about what they wanted to do. And they were really positive.”

Twenty-four years later, the two native Iowans have reunited. Henderson is a new Hawkeyes assistant coach for new head coach Jensen. Among other duties, Henderson is taking over Jensen’s role as the coach who guides post players.

Henderson first came to Iowa in 1997 after being named the state’s high school Miss Iowa Basketball at Cedar Falls. After her college playing career was over, she went on to be head coach at Minnesota-Morris for a year and at Coe College for nine. She was an assistant coach at Division I Charlotte for two years, and spent the last seven as head coach of Washington University in St. Louis.

Her husband, Duez Henderson, was an Iowa men’s basketball player from 1998-2002. He was on her WashU staff for five years. They have two children. Her response to Jensen’s job offer wasn’t an instant yes, but only because she liked where she was.

“I’m not just leaving a head coaching position, I’m moving my whole family,” Randi Henderson said. “I’ve got young kids, my mother-in-law lives with us. Duez is obviously an alumni, but we had a home in St. Louis and we have a lot of good friends.”

She noted she was leaving “a really good team that I really love,” but “Iowa being a great place and Jan being a great person were things that I knew were true.”

Henderson was a very good head coach. She’s been Coach of the Year in three different conferences and had a record of 274-155.

“I was fortunate to get to play for Randi during my career at Coe and she has continued to be a mentor for me throughout my coaching career,” said Coe women’s coach Kayla Waskow.

“When the (Iowa assistant) job opened, I was hoping that it would be a possibility for her to return as I thought she would be an excellent fit … I know that so many people are excited for her and her family to be back in the area.”

Henderson coached Coe from 2006-2015, leading the women’s program to its first two NCAA tourneys.

“I loved my time at Coe,” said Henderson. “I helped sort of rebuild that program from where they weren’t winning a lot to making NCAA tournaments, and now one of my former players is the head coach there. It’s been really cool watching her keep building on the program.

“Once a Kohawk, always a Kohawk.”

But now she’s a Hawkeye again after totaling 936 points and 745 rebounds at Iowa a quarter-century ago, and she’s an assistant coach for the first time in eight years.

“I think I’m a team player, naturally,” Henderson said. “Being on a team, the role to me matters less than the people you’re around and your ability to add value.

“When you put being back at your alma mater at a time when women’s basketball is on the rise with someone like Jan, who believed in me when she first started to coach me and led me to be an All-Big Ten post player and our team to a Big Ten championship, it was a really great opportunity to join somebody that has believed in me for a long time.

“It was not seamless, but I think also really impossible to say no.”

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