By Bob Nuse, Sports Editor
It was a long road to his finest hour and for Phil Henson, it all started at The Hun School.
The 2007 Hun graduate recently captured a bronze medal as part of the Lightweight 8 boat at the Under-23 World Rowing Championships. It’s been a steady progression for Henson, who rowed for Dartmouth College after graduating from Hun.
“I’d like to think it was part of the progress I made in my formative years and hopefully helped me to develop,” Henson said of his time rowing for Hun. “I was lucky to be there with Geoff Evans and all my teammates who helped me with my love for the sport.
“I knew nothing about it before going to an info session my freshman year of high school. Someone told me I was tall and looked like could do very well. It’s a sport that suits my philosophy that hard work pays off. You can see that in this sport at all levels. That is how I have been progressing the past 10-11 years. I have been growing and trying to achieve my goals.”
After his career at Hun, Henson was a standout rower at Dartmouth where he earned a degree in biomedical engineering. For the past four years he trained out of Craftsbury, Vt. In 2011, he made the national team in pairs with Dartmouth graduate Phil Griselda, where they earned a ninth-place finish in 2011in the lightweight pairs at the U-23World Rowing Championships.
“I was a recruited athlete to Dartmouth and knew I wanted to row in college after rowing for Hun for four years,” Henson said. “I knew Dartmouth was a good fit as soon as set foot on the campus. Rowing has been big part of my life and I have been taking it forward since I graduated high school.
“I was a biomedical engineering major in college and I am interested in pursuing that later. But during my senior year my coach at Dartmouth was leaving to coach at an elite club in Vermont and asked me if I was interested in helping to get that started. I jumped right in head first and been training there for three years.”
With his college coach, Dan Roock, helping along the way Henson continued to improve and recently made the move to the lightweight 8 boat. That transition started with his move to the club team.
“That was a pretty important transition step in my rowing career because it was right after my four years at Dartmouth,” Henson said. “We went into nationals that summer racing the pairs for fun and went in almost on a whim. We wound up winning and going to Amsterdam for the Worlds and having a blast even though we got ninth.
“The center in Vermont, Craftsbury, is mostly a small boat training center. I went from the 8s in college to pair with Phil that summer and then almost exclusively singles or pairs the next three years. I raced a ton of times but never made it to a national team. I was often second or third. They always have lightweight 8 camp there and athletes will join the camp at the beginning of the summer selection process to narrow down the boat. On a whim I tried the 8s and had an absolute blast. It reminded me of my college days rowing in bigger boats. It was a great atmosphere.”
As part of the lightweight 8, Henson earned a bronze medal in the recent World championships in France.
“We were excited,” Henson said. “It was our goal from the beginning to make it to the podium. We knew it would be tough. The boats returning had a lot of the same athletes and did pretty well. It is always tough going against boats with the pedigree they have with multiple Olympic and World Championship medals. It’s daunting and exciting to be the underdogs.”
Henson, who grew up in Princeton, is currently back in the area where he is deciding what his next rowing step will be.
“The Olympics are next year,” Henson said. “The selection for boats is well underway and in some cases almost sorted out. I’m not sure where that places me. I think my chances are not very high right now. But doesn’t mean I want to stop training. I want to continue training and that is a goal. But I also want to start working and making some money. So I am in the process of sorting that out.”
For now, Henson is happy to be back in the Princeton area where it all started for him in rowing. And he’s grateful to have started in an area that supports the sport so well.
“Rowing is definitely a big part of Princeton’s culture and only getting more popular,” he said. “It is encouraging to see in Princeton and other parts of the country. There are always people willing to help, whether it is by hosting people in their homes or other support. It’s great to see.
“I have been able to get back and row in the area quite a bit. We have quite a few races on Mercer Lake where the Hun boathouse is with Lawrenceville, Peddie and the Mercer club. I race there three or four times a year and my parents are still nearby so I get to go home and hang out where I went to school for seven years. It’s always great to come back to my home course and row there three or four times a year.”
