A different person from Charlotte Latin Athletics is featured on the first Tuesday of each month with twenty questions to help the CLS community get to know some of our athletes, coaches, and supporters a bit better.

July 2022 features three-sport athlete and rising senior Tyler Hendley, who is in the midst of summer workouts for football but also plays basketball and runs track. Read on to learn more about Tyler, his influences, and the resilience he's shown in overcoming multiple serious injuries.

1. Tell us a little bit about your family. Did everyone grow up here?

My dad grew up in Monroe and went to college at UNCW. Mom grew up in New Jersey, but she moved to South Carolina for college. My sisters and I have lived here our whole lives, although we've moved houses a few times. I'm the oldest. Holden is fifteen, and Piper is nine. Oh, and there's Monty, our labradoodle. He's around five years old.

2. Do you and your sisters have similar personalities?

Piper is full of energy and she will talk to anybody about anything. Holden is more quiet, more reserved. I guess I'm a little bit of both, depending on the situation. I can be reserved, but if I'm with my friends or people I've comfortable with, then I am more out there.

3. You're a Latin Lifer. Are there any teachers that have made a particularly strong impact on you?

Ms. Ashcraft, my second-grade teacher. She was actually my dad's babysitter a while back, so she's a family friend of ours. She's pretty much my #1 fan and she's been to basically every game I've had. We've just formed a really strong connection that's deepened the past couple of years. Also, Senora Cuellar. She's just really been there for me. Spanish has been challenging for me, but she helped me really understand the language and taught us a lot about the culture, including controversial topics around diversity, race, and religion. That class and a trip I took to Costa Rica with Latin the summer going into my ninth grade year really broadened my view of what other countries are like and the differences between how I live and what it might be like for other children.

4. Are you involved in anything at Latin outside of academics and athletics?

I used to be in band through Middle School and freshmen year, but I quit to focus on AP classes. I played the clarinet until ninth grade, when I switched to bass clarinet. I loved playing clarinet. I still have it somewhere. I actually wish I'd taken piano a while ago.

5. As a rising senior, college is surely on your mind. Any ideas about where you'd like to go?

My parents would like me to broaden my list, but I've been looking at a small group of schools that I feel like would be a good fit. I want to try to play football in college, which definitely limits the selection. Whether I play football or not, I know want to go to a smaller school.

6. Football is just one of the sports you play at Latin. Take us through a summary of your sports journey and how you came to be a three-sport athlete.

I'm pretty sure I started in soccer, but I feel like everybody starts in soccer. Basketball came shortly after, or maybe I started them about the same time, and I've pretty much played that ever since. I tried tennis, golf, baseball...but didn't really excel at any of them. I think football started in fifth grade. I played Pop Warner for the Southpark Falcons with Davis Sayman, George Smith, and Thomas Hunter. I got hit in the first practice that we were allowed to wear pads to and asked my dad if I could quit, but he wouldn't let me. The coaches had me playing offensive line and defensive line and I was maybe 90 pounds and it just was not what I wanted to do. I hated it most of the season and did not play the next year. Then track...Jackson Scott kind of made me do it. He wanted a friend to do it with him, so I joined the team in eighth grade. I wouldn't say I loved it, but it kept me active and in shape for my other sports and I liked it enough to stick with it.

7. When you were coming through Lower School and sixth grade, was playing sports for Latin something you aspired to do?

I've been going to pretty much every home football game at Latin most of my life. Seeing the team walk out to Hells Bells and hanging out on the track to watch them play – I definitely looked forward to being on the team when I got old enough.

8. You quit Pop Warner football after one season, so were your aspirations to play for the Hawks strong enough to overcome your initial dislike of the sport?

That, and a change of position. At one of the first Middle School practices, Coach Smith asked us to take the field in the position that we wanted to play. I went straight to receiver. I didn't get to play at all during the first 2 or 3 games, but I guess I proved myself during practice and was then able to start the rest of the season as a seventh grader.

9. You are well into summer football workouts. How's it going?

The new guys, both those just coming to Latin and those coming up from Middle School, they just fit well with the team. It already feels like they've been here a lot longer than they have. They're not shy and they're fully committed. I definitely feel like I've had to step up my role as a leader. We lost a lot of guys, especially our seniors that graduated, and some of them were my closest friends, so it's going to be different. But the summer practices have been so good and we've already become a tight knit team, so it's going to be fun.

10. Have any of the other players at Latin been especially influential?

Danny (Haughton). He's very intellectual, very smart, and I feel like we can talk to each other about anything – in sports and in life. After our 2020 season, which was rough, he kept encouraging me and telling me we were going to get through it together. And just watching him, his work ethic and how he approaches everything, it's affected how I view everything. I admire him and he's made a big impact on my life.

11. Are there big differences in the styles of your various coaches?

Coach Malai is my main track coach and she really pushes us to our limits, but she's also very compassionate and it's obvious that she cares about our personal success. Coach Hardin's style has changed over the years. My freshman year he was really animated and took more of a tough guy approach. Sophomore year was rough. It seemed like our team didn't really want it as much and there were limitations because of Covid, so it was frustrating, I'm sure, for all of the coaches. Last year, my junior year, Coach Hardin had to adapt initially because he had torn his patella tendons and couldn't coach the way he was used to coaching. Then he developed different approaches based on different players' personalities, learning who to yell at and who doesn't do well with that style. Coach Berger is like a college coach. He teaches us life lessons and treats us like his sons, but along the way he pushes us. Latin basketball players are never the biggest or the most skilled, individually, but Coach Berger is the best coach in North Carolina and he teaches us to play and compete as a team.

12. What do you like most and least about each of your sports?

What I love most about basketball is the brotherhood. There's not really another sport where you have such a small group of guys that go through several years together. What I hate is the conditioning. It's exhausting in a way the others aren't. In track, I love the competitiveness. It's literally you against the people next to you. What I don't like is that it's not really a team sport. Even though there's a team score, you're not training with most of the other athletes and I don't feel as strong of a bond with the track team as I do with my other sports. In football, I love the pace of the game. I prefer playing offense more than defense, but I love being out there for every play. And you can't take a play off. You need all 11 guys on the field to go full-out and know what they're doing. There isn't another sport I would trade over football. The only bad part is summer workouts. Just being out there every day in the heat is awful.

13. Injuries are pretty awful as well, and you've had your share of those. Walk us through them.

I've had two official concussions. One freshman year in football and one sophomore year in basketball. Then junior year, I got in a car crash and I felt like I had a concussion again. Then I had strep. Then I broke my collarbone, which was really hard because we (the football team) were 7-0 before that and I wanted to finish the year out with my team because I thought we could win it all. I broke my left collarbone and I'm a lefty, so I couldn't write, I couldn't drive, couldn't really shower, or eat. Then a month and a half later, basketball started and I got cleared to play, but then I got Covid. After I returned, my first game back, I tore my groin. Then I had to be in a wrap the duration of the basketball season. After that, I bruised my hip, which sidelined me for part of the track season. Now, I have a stress fracture in my foot. Hopefully, I'll be injury-free after this, but with my luck, you never know.

14. That's a lot to handle. How have you gotten through it all?

I'm actually writing a college essay about this. All of these injuries have shown me that I have a great support group of friends and family that are there for me. I'm really fortunate. There were 15 or so people in my house the day after I had my collarbone surgery. Coach Berger told me to reach out to Bates Jones (class of 2017), because he had a similar injury his senior year going into the state (football) playoffs, and gave me his number. So Bates and I talked and he shared his mindset through his experience and that was helpful. There was also a Twitter post on the Latin football account when I was getting my surgery that said, "The comeback is always stronger than the setback." That really touched my heart. There's no other option, really, than to come back stronger. I need to put my full effort into the comeback or otherwise I won't improve or progress. And, I really want to be there for my team. They've been there for me and I want to pay it back.

15. What's been your most memorable Latin sports moment so far?

The Charlotte Christian football game this year that came down to the game-winning field goal. Seeing everybody run on the field and celebrating. It was an awesome experience.

16. Do you have a splurge food?

Cold Stone's Founder's Favorite ice cream. When I lived near Ardrey Kell, there's a Cold Stone nearby in Blakeney, and I used to go there and get tubs of Founder's Favorite. Davis Sayman texted me recently because he was at a Cold Stone and asked me what to get. I told him about Founder's Favorite and he said it was the best thing ever.

17. If time and money were no issue, where would you travel?

Honestly, probably just the Caribbean. I hate flying. I went to Hawaii over spring break and I hated the plane ride. I don't really like traveling a lot.

18. When you were in kindergarten, what did you want to be when you grew up?

I think a president, just because the tenth president is John Tyler and that's my name, so I wanted to be like him.

19. And now?

I have no clue. Absolutely no clue.

20. Is there anything you know you don't want to be?

A president.

 

The Hendley Family (l-r): Nance Hendley, John Hendley, Heather Hendley, Holdyn Hendley, Piper Hendley, Tyler Hendley, Julie Hendley