Memphis Basketball Hits A Home Run With C.J. Henry

It must be great to be a two-sports star.

That certainly is the case for C.J. Henry.

Henry was a hot shot baseball player who signed a $1.6 million signing bonus out of high school to play for the New York Yankees. But it wasn’t to be as he suffered at the plate and suffered injuries, including vision problems that has either ended his career or put it on hold.

So Henry went with Plan B and contacted Bill Self of the defending National Champions Kansas Jayhawks and the coach and team they beat for the title, John Calipari at Memphis (how’s that for irony) about playing college basketball.

Henry, who originally committed to Kansas as a senior in high school, immediately enrolled at Memphis where he will try to make the team as a non-scholarship player this season. Henry is 6-foot-3 1/2 and 220 pounds and could compete for the starting point guard position.

The Yankees are paying for his education so it’s a win-win situation for the Calipari and the Tigers. That’s because the Tigers are still in the running to sign Henry’s brother Xavier, one of the top high school players in the nation for the class of 2009.

You want more irony? Calipari coached Henry’s father Carl while he was an assistant at Kansas years ago.