The talented but often troubled Bengals receiver passed away today, after a strange accident cost him his life

SCOTT JACOBS

Just when he finally seemed to be heading towards ‘daylight’ Chris Henry’s strange, often troubled life came to a screeching halt.

What ended the oft-troubled life of Henry remains fuzzy.  The latest is that he was on the bed of his pickup truck when during a dispute with his wife he fell off.  It doesn’t make much sense.  It came out of nowhere.  He was in life threatening condition yesterday, and gone from the earth today.

It’s hard to say if it’s sad, tragic, or flat out baffling, because Henry finally seemed to have put his life back together.

He came a long way from the man who got suspended in West Virginia and whom head coach at the time Rich Rodriguez called “an embarassment to the program.”  He had arrests and problems galore when he finally landed in the NFL.  He became one of Roger Godell’s poster children for a tougher discipline policy, when Goodell suspended him for half of the 2007 season.  The Bengals even released him at one point, before finally bringing him back after no one wanted him.

His life in shambles, Henry finally began putting the pieces together.  He started working harder, and tried to become more of a family man to his fiance and children.  This offseason he came out determined to prove his skeptics wrong.  He started out the season with some flashes of greatness and had a stellar pre-season.  Unfortunately adversity, as it often did in Henry’s short life, cut his season short.  Chris broke his left forearm in a November 8th win over Baltimore and was lost for the season.

Today he lost his life.

Whether you liked Henry or hated him, it’s hard not to be saddened when a man who fought so many demons for so many years, finally seemed to be getting it right, and then out of nowhere, his life was taken away.

Henry had many issues, but he seemed cordial in trying to fix them, and the Bengals talked of him today as a man that was much different than the one portrayed by the media.  I never met Henry, so I wouldn’t know.

But athlete or no athlete, the story is a sad one.  Another talent lost in his prime.  A human being lost when he finally seemed to find have things at least sort of figured out.

When we give people second and third, and even fifth chances, that’s all we ask of them, is that they do the right thing.  Henry seemed to be doing just that.  Henry, was 26.

Photo: AP

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