Scoring Champions Meet While Witnessing Greatness
Buena Vista graduate shares a few moments with Kansas legend Lynette Woodard in Iowa City.
On the day Iowa Hawkeye Caitlin Clark broke “Pistol” Pete Maravich’s NCAA basketball scoring record, two other scoring giants met courtside and reminisced: Lynette Woodard and Jeannie (Demers) Henningsen ’87.
Woodard was on hand as Clark, a senior at the University of Iowa, recently eclipsed the scoring mark Woodard established while playing at Kansas University in the early 1980s. Woodard was interviewed during the telecast and graciously directed the attention to Clark, today’s mega-star.
“It was so cool to meet Lynette Woodard and share a few moments with her,” Henningsen says. “I remember looking up to her when I was in high school and in college. She was the scoring leader and the first female Harlem Globetrotter. Despite her many achievements, she’s so grounded and gracious and wanting the attention to be directed to Caitlin Clark. It was a real highlight to meet such a kind person, who, in our sport, and in women’s athletics, is truly an icon.”
An icon in her own right, Demers remains at the top of the scoring chart in NCAA Division III Women’s Basketball with 3,171 points, a standard that remains after 37 years.
“I had two of the greatest coaches I could ever have in Coach Marge Willadsen and Coach Naughton. They put together very competitive teams and remained friends and mentors of mine long after college.”
-Jeannie (Demers) Henningsen, 1987 Buena Vista graduate
“It was thrilling to see Caitlin Clark play,” said Henningsen, who noted that Clark’s assault on the records has left her a little more reflective in recent weeks, thinking back that point in time in 1987 when a bit of the national spotlight was centered on Siebens Fieldhouse and the Beavers of Head Coach John Naughton ’50. Demers was featured in Sports Illustrated and then on ABC’s Wide World of Sports, a segment that came about as she was picked for the show over a sophomore at the University of North Carolina, a player named Michael Jordan.
“A crew came to Buena Vista and shot video and photos all over campus,” says Henningsen, an Academic All-American education major who earned a 4.0 grade-point average. “I had to cut the session short because I had to take a test.”
A three-time First Team All-American and a member of the 1985 Iowa Conference Women’s Basketball Championship team, Henningsen approached the all-time scoring record late in her senior season. With BV having been eliminated from the regular-season league championship race, Coach Naughton asked his team to work to get his star guard from Truesdale more shots as he wanted her to set the record at Siebens Fieldhouse, if possible. She did it on the home finale in February, swishing a 15-foot jumper against William Penn.
“I remember coming off a screen set by then-freshman Patti (Kuhl) Demers,” Henningsen said, smiling at the fact that Demers, a 1990 graduate, would one day marry Jim Demers ’91, Jeannie’s younger brother.
As the shot found the bottom of net, fans threw rolls of toilet paper into the air, cheering as they streamed to the tartan surface of Siebens Fieldhouse. The new scoring champ hugged her teammates, Coach Naughton, her mother, Delphine Demers, and her four siblings, including Joleen (Demers) Brown ’84, who was a senior basketball starter when Jeannie teamed with her in the backcourt as a freshman.
“My dad, Louis Demers Jr., died on Feb. 26, 1986,” she remembers. “He was always with me in spirit.”
Henningsen said she came to BV because she had the opportunity to play both softball and basketball. The University of Iowa had recruited her to play softball, only.
As a freshman, she played third base on the Beavers’ 1984 NCAA Division III National Championship team. She would go on to earn all-league honors and All-American laurels in both sports. She was a four-time First Team All-Iowa Conference honoree in basketball and a three-time first-teamer in softball.
“I had two of the greatest coaches I could ever have in Coach Marge Willadsen and Coach Naughton,” she says. “They put together very competitive teams and remained friends and mentors of mine long after college.”
Four or five basketball teammates would finish the season each February or March, then join the softball team for practice. And while seasons overlapped, the coaches were accommodating when it came to sharing players who wanted to experience the challenges and thrills of being a dual-sport student-athlete.
Beyond her siblings who graduated from BV, Jeannie’s husband, Mark Henningsen, was also a Beaver, having graduated in 1987. The couple’s children, Jordan and Jalen, were student-athletes at BVU as well, graduating in 2015 and 2017, respectively.
After graduating, Henningsen taught and coached in the Storm Lake Community School District. When Mark’s sales career took the couple to Omaha for three years, Jeannie was an at-home parent with their young children. She returned to the classroom when they relocated back to Storm Lake in 1998. She taught third grade for 17 years at Alta-Aurelia, then became an Elementary/Middle School Principal and has served in that capacity for nine rewarding years.
Henningsen also coached throughout her career, having achieved a milestone in earning her 500th victory as a head volleyball coach at Alta-Aurelia in 2022. In addition, she coached golf, girls’ basketball, softball, and little league baseball through the years.
Baseball, she says, gave her a jumpstart into organized athletics. Well, baseball and life on the farm near Truesdale, a few miles northeast of Storm Lake.
“Growing up on the farm, my siblings and I played sports year-round with each other,” she says. “I was then fortunate enough to be able to play little league baseball with the boys at Truesdale from third grade to seventh grade. We didn’t have organized sports exclusive for girls at the time, so I was allowed to play on the boys’ teams. Despite not playing girls’ softball early in my life, softball became my favorite sport.”
It was a BV softball teammate, in fact, who gave Henningsen the idea to meet Woodard that afternoon at Carver-Hawkeye Arena in Iowa City. “Mark and I arrived early for ESPN’s GameDay telecast, and we were watching the production,” she says. “And then I noticed that Jill Petsel (a 1985 BV graduate) was courtside and had her photo taken with Lynette Woodard. It was a great opportunity, so I asked security personnel if I could do the same.”
The photo is now one of her favorite shots from a career steeped in sports highlights and memories. After 34 years in education, Henningsen will retire this summer and move into a home she and Mark are having constructed on Lake Panorama. The move puts them closer to their children. In retirement, she says, she’ll remain active. One of her avocations? She’ll serve as a volleyball official. She is not hanging up her whistle just yet.
“Our daughter, Jordan, and one of her BV volleyball teammates, Maggie Ramold ’15, are officiating volleyball and I plan to join their crew,” she says. “We are short on officials in Iowa, and I’d like to be involved. I look forward to staying in the sport in that capacity, enjoying the competition from a new perspective.”