Seems that a man who played at Kansas and had a brief pro career would understand that the press often misconstrues things, takes things out of context, and one has to be careful when speaking with them. The more elder Henry talks, the more skeptical I become. He certainly positioned himself in the two-part article as keeping everything together for his kids to arrive in Lawrence-seems he's more interested in his self-image than that of his sons.
One would think that Henry's kids would be looking forward to getting to Kansas if Dad would keep his mouth shut. Here's some of the comments in the Kansas City Star article, plus the comments from the Shiver interview where Carl Henry speaks on his sons' behalfs. I certainly wouldn't want my father saying these things as representative of me:
“He doesn’t wanna go,” Carl says. “I said, ‘Well, you call Coach Self and tell him you don’t want to come.’ ”
“If he didn’t have to go to college, he wouldn’t do it,” Carl says.
“I don’t like stepping on people’s toes,” Carl says, “but I just know what I know. I watch them play, all the Kansas kids. I like all these kids, (Sherron) Collins, (Tyshawn Taylor), they’re good kids, man. But they’re not better than C.J.”
“Everybody’s gotta be on board,” Carl says. “The coach has got to be on board.”
“It’s almost like they don’t want us up there, and right now, my kids don’t want to go because of that article,” Henry said.
“I tell you the truth about it. His mother (Barbara Henry) said she wasn’t moving to Kentucky,” Henry said. ”Xavier then decided to keep the family together and head to Kansas, where I was telling him to go. I played at Kansas, I know Kansas, and that is where I wanted them to go,” Henry added.
“Xavier has a lot of dental stuff going on too, which would have caused him to drive back and forth, and back and forth. He is having 4 wisdom team pulled, a root canal, and some other stuff,” Henry said. “If Coach Self told him it was mandatory, he would have been there. Now if it were me, I would have gone myself. Now we got radio stations down here calling Xavier a prima-donna and what not and they have never even met him,” Henry added.
“Barbara told Xavier she wasn’t moving to Kentucky, so Xavier chose Kansas to keep the family together and to keep everyone happy. She then told him that he can go where he wants to after all this stuff started coming out and she was upset. Xavier thought about switching to Kentucky then, and CJ would have followed, but I kept this Kansas thing together,” Henry said. “I told them that after going on television and saying that you wanted to be with your family and everything, that they need to go to Kansas. Plus they could win the national title and are ranked number 1 already,” added Henry.
“We are going out to L.A. in August, like the 2nd-9th, to work out with a lot of pros out there. Paul Pierce, Derrick Rose, Sheldon Williams, and Tyreke Evans. I know a lot of those guys from my days andwe think it will be great for them to work out with those guys,” said Henry.
