Doyel: Lebanon's 'miracle' coach returns from massive heart attack

LEBANON – Things were moving so fast, the boys on the Lebanon High School basketball team didn't know what had just happened to their coach. Or what could have happened.

But I knew, because not 15 minutes earlier Albert Hendrix had told me one potential worst-case scenario of coaching this season -- eight weeks after suffering a massive heart attack that had surgeons warning his wife he could die on the operating table, then unzipping his chest like a winter coat and getting to work.

The surgery was Sept. 15. Hendrix survived, recovered and got back to coaching. A few days ago I went to Lebanon to talk with him, and he told me what still could go wrong. And 15 minutes later, at the start of practice, it did.

The boys were doing a half-court drill, the offense whipping around passes against a zone. Hendrix was standing nearby, mostly quiet, watching. And then it happened. A tipped pass rocketed out of bounds.

Right at Hendrix.

Right into his sternum.

Not 15 minutes earlier, Albert Hendrix had told me this was the real risk of returning so soon from the quadruple bypass he underwent Sept. 15 at the St. Vincent Heart Center. The heart itself was good, better than it had been in years. Until his heart attack he had been surviving on a fluke – more on that in a minute – with two arteries blocked 100 percent, a third blocked 95 percent, and a fourth 80 percent.

So anyway. About the worst-case scenario.

The heart is strong and getting stronger -- but the sternum? Not so much. The real risk for 53-year-old Hendrix, surgeons told him, was a shot to the sternum. The bone will heal, but just eight weeks ago it was pulled apart like a chicken breast so surgeons could get to his heart, and the healing process takes up to eight months. So protect your sternum, surgeons told him. Don't let anything hit it.

Eight weeks later – just a few days ago – a basketball flew off the court and smashed into his sternum.

The boys had no idea. Hendrix immediately doubled over, and I rose from my seat. Is this it? Is this happening?

Here's what was happening: Hendrix was bending down to pick up the ball, throw it onto the court, get back to the business of coaching.

***

Hendrix cries a lot these days. But then, he always has. He's a tough man, a guy whose style works for him but not for everybody – "People tend to really like me," he says, "or hate me" – but he's emotional.

Hendrix has been the Lebanon head coach five years. His first two years he coached his son, Trey, who graduated as Lebanon's all-time leader in career assists, and fourth in points (Rick Mount is first). At Lebanon they do pregame introductions big, with the lights down and the intensity up, and for two years Albert Hendrix watched his son get introduced while breaking into proud-papa tears. A player on the team, Ray Solomon, watched for it and then smiled at him before every game.

The guy's emotional, and the heart attack made him more so. There's stress and guilt and relief, and there's joy at being here for his wife, his kids, his players. Albert Hendrix not only could be dead, but probably should be. His heart was in such bad shape, two blood vessels tore loose. The blood they dripped into the bottom of his heart sustained him. That's what surgeons found during the 7-hour, 20-minute procedure on Sept. 15. That's what was keeping him alive.

"I'm so blessed to have this second chance," Hendrix says, his eyes turning red. "Somebody upstairs was looking out for me. He easily could have called me home, but I've been fortunate."

Here come the tears.

"I'm sorry," he says.

His emotion and passion are obvious. So is his temper. A few years ago a player named Jack Day made a bad pass late in a close game against Kokomo, and Lebanon was about to lose, but first Kokomo called timeout and Day headed to the bench, to Hendrix, like a guy heading to his execution. And then Day decided: You know what? I'm not going right to the bench. He took the long route, along the baseline, almost out of the gym – and Hendrix followed him, chewing him out for his mental blunder.

How does Jack Day feel about Albert Hendrix? Last year he accepted Hendrix's offer to coach the eighth-grade team at Lebanon. They're colleagues now. Friends.

Hendrix is like that. Drill-sergeant tough, but adored by players. After the heart attack they came to his hospital room in waves, and the ones who couldn't get there called. Hendrix tries to tell me about it but gives up after the tears start up again.

"I'm sorry," he says again.

I don't say a word. Can't. Because he's not the only one crying.

***

Lebanon athletics director Phil Levine calls Hendrix "a miracle," because Levine never dreamed Hendrix would, even could, coach this season. Levine had a Plan B in place for this season, but only for this season, because Albert Hendrix was going to return eventually.

"He's our coach," Levine says. "He was always going to be our coach. I didn't know he could be our coach again this season, but he's a miracle."

There could be something to that. Albert Hendrix also is a Boone County sheriff's deputy – you're right; should have mentioned that sooner – and 10 years ago he was shot by his partner's gun. The department had tracked a meth dealer to the Walmart in Frankfort, and Hendrix's partner got there first. Hendrix walked into chaos, the meth dealer and Hendrix's partner rolling on the floor, the dealer grabbing for the deputy's gun, Hendrix diving onto the pile and somehow the gun going off – the bullet going into the dealer's stomach, out his back, then completely through Hendrix's lower leg. Doctors told Hendrix the bullet missed a main artery "by the size of an ant."

So a miracle, Albert Hendrix? Could be. He's still here after slowing down so much last year that he couldn't walk from the front office to the gym without stopping to rest. After practice he couldn't walk to his car in the parking lot without a break. And yet the day he almost died, Sept. 15, Hendrix played golf.

"Not real smart," he says.

He couldn't walk from the green to the golf cart without stopping. His three playing partners – two of them older, having suffered heart issues of their own – begged him to get checked out. That night his chest pain grew and Hendrix woke his wife, Judi, and asked her to drive him to the hospital. She started out going the speed limit. By the end she was going 85 mph.

"That's when I knew it was serious," says another of Hendrix's five children, Trevin Poole. "He's a cop. He likes to do all the driving. But he wanted her to drive him."

After surviving his coin flip of a surgery, Hendrix waited to find out if he was finished coaching. Understand, while he's absolutely a sheriff's deputy and a family man – two kids of his own (Trey and Haley), three step-children with Judi (Trevin, Kassi and Paige Poole) – Hendrix is a coaching lifer. He coached seventh grade at Lebanon, then eighth grade. He went to Western Boone and coached the JV, then returned to Lebanon as a varsity assistant. In 2010 he became head coach, was able to coach his son – he named Trey after the three-point shot – and amassed a career record of 61-28.

After five days of avoiding the topic, Hendrix met with his doctors on Sept. 20 and said: "I'm a basketball coach. I want to get back to coaching."

There was a pause.

"I was a nervous wreck," Hendrix says. "I don't know what I would've done if they'd said, 'You can't do this.' It was an emotional moment."

Finally the doctor said: You can. Your heart's stronger than it has been in years, but heed this: Don't get too worked up, and protect the sternum.

The sternum wasn't protected a few days ago, but Hendrix is OK. As for not getting too worked up, well, Hendrix is trying. The practice I watched, he stood on the periphery of drills, not moving much and not raising his voice. From the sideline I could see his mouth moving but couldn't hear him over the sound of sneakers squeaking. Not at first anyway. But as practice moved forward and the boys' intensity grew, so did Hendrix's. He was lost in the moment, talking, encouraging, growling.

The coach was coaching and it was time for me to go, and as I walked out of the gym I could hear players competing and the sound of Albert Hendrix shouting for more.

Follow Star columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter: @GreggDoyelStar