Southern Staff Stories: The Hennon Ledger

Baseball has been a part of Rodney Hennon’s life since he can remember. “I grew up enjoying it and watching it all the time,” Head coach Rodney Hennon said. “In those days we didn’t have ESPN and all the highlights, all we had were the Braves on TBS. It was customary in our home that most nights the Braves were on TV and we were watching.”

Growing up in Dalton, Georgia, Hennon was around sports 24/7. As he continued to get older, his love of baseball grew. His father Lamar Hennon, played baseball at Lincoln Memorial University in Harrogate, Tennessee, becoming the first one in his family to earn a college degree.

Lamar Hennon has impacted many people across the baseball world and his legacy continues to live on in three different locations. Lamar gave back to his alma mater, renovating the baseball facility in 2017. LMU features bleachers for 750 fans, a state of the art lighting and on-site locker rooms and offices. The field is artificial turf, with a clay mound. Lamar helped LMU move from NAIA to Division II and the field and stands were named in his honor.

“I think with dad, baseball provided him an opportunity to get a college education. I don’t think he every took that for granted and he always appreciated that. He loved the game and following the game, but he always enjoyed the young people. He enjoyed sports and athletics and really understood the opportunities that it has provided for a lot of young people. Any opportunity that he had to help a kid, he enjoyed doing just that.”

Family is a big part of Coach Hennon’s life and his family has always been involved in sports. Whether it was baseball, football, basketball or soccer, the Hennon’s were always playing some kind of sport. Rodney, along with his wife Kim, have three children - Walker, Keeli and Carter. Carter, a sophomore in high school attends Bulloch Academy. Keeli enters her second year at Mercer University, while Walker is playing baseball at Lincoln Memorial University.

Coach Hennon’s playing career began at Western Carolina University, where he majored in Economics. During his time at WCU, Hennon played under two legendary head coaches in Jack Leggett and Keith LeClair. Both coach Leggett and coach LeClair became mentors to Rodney and after his playing days were over, with coach LeClair gave him the opportunity to start coaching.

“I was fortunate enough when I came through Dalton High School that we had a lot of talented players in my class and the class ahead of me. I was fortunate to be seen by college coaches during those years. Coach Leggett was able to come down and see my practice and play a good bit. There is a good story about my recruiting trip up in Western. When we were there Todd Greene, Buddy Holder and I stayed on the same floor in the dorms together. Obviously Todd and Buddy ended up at Southern, but we had a good time and we enjoyed that visit. Coach Leggett made an impression on me and I felt like that was the best opportunity for me to improve and get better.”

Hennon served as a full-time assistant coach for his alma mater for three seasons, helping lead the Wildcats to a 42-40 record, a Southern Conference title and a NCAA Tournament appearance in 1997 as a member of the late Keith LeClair’s staff. Hennon took over the head coaching duties in 1998 and spent two season at WCU as head coach.

Hennon had always talked about being a coach with Coach Leggett and Coach LeClair. At the end of the day, Hennon had an opportunity to coach under Keith LeClair at Western Carolina. In 1999, Hennon left Cullowhee, North Carolina and took the job in Statesboro.

“Fortunately I had the opportunity to go back and start working under coach Keith LeClair. We lost Coach LeClair at an early age to Lou Gehrigs disease, but the fact that he gave me the opportunity as a young coach and allowed me to go out and fail, but he had trust in me to work for him. I could not have had a better experience early on than what I had under him.”

Since 1969, the Georgia Southern Baseball head coaching tenure has been something special. The Eagles have had just four coaches: Bill Spieth, Ron Polk, Jack Stallings and Rodney Hennon. The decision to move from Cullowhee to Statesboro was not an easy decision for coach Hennon, but he ultimately saw that it was an opportunity that he couldn’t pass up.