Sophomore weight thrower Walter Henning has come a long way to make it to the LSU track and field team.Though born and raised in New York, he wasn’t engulfed in Times Square and Broadway.”I’m not a city slicker. I’m a farm boy,” said the Kings Park, N.Y., native, who grew up on a Christmas tree farm. “I have John Deeres, and I drive a Jeep.”Henning’s father, Walter Sr., started Henning in track and field at a young age. The elder Henning has been a track coach for more than 20 years.”He started bringing me to United States Track and Field, and they have a subdivision called Long Island Track and Field,” the younger Henning said. “I started doing those meets in [1999].”  His father didn’t necessarily see his son becoming a weight thrower.”He’s a great athlete, always confident in everything that he did,” Walter Sr. said. “He competed in nationals in the pentathlon and was a medalist at a very young age. He was such a great athlete that I pictured him being a decathlete down the road, and then he got lost with the hammer and the rest is history.”Walter Jr. transferred to LSU from North Carolina after his freshman season. At North Carolina he earned All-America honors after setting the school record in the weight throw at the NCAA Indoor Championships. He finished third with a throw of 72 feet, 3 inches.”They had a good throwers coach, but the throwers coach that recruited me left,” he said. “[He] went to Oklahoma the summer before my freshman year started, and they promised me a release if I didn’t like the new coach … and I’m here.”A big reason for the Tigers’ appeal to Henning was LSU throwing coach Derek Yush.”Coach Yush was at Rhode Island when I was in high school and recruited me out of Rhode Island, and because it was a small school they didn’t have any scholarship money there,” he said. “He came [to LSU] my freshman year, and I wasn’t going to leave [North] Carolina before I really gave it a test drive. When I got down here and realized he was down here, I was really happy with that.”Henning’s accomplishments continue to mount. In his first meet with the Tigers, he set the LSU indoor and Carl Maddox Field House record with a toss of 72 feet, 3 3/4 inches. The throw earned him the honors of Southeastern Conference Male Field Athlete of the Week.Even after the early success, Henning remains humble.”The important part about him is he’s so level-headed,” said Henning’s father. “He doesn’t have a big ego. It’s important to be grounded.”The following week at Texas A&M he broke his own school record and set an NCAA-leading mark of 73 feet, 4 3/4 inches. No other competitors in the meet reached 70 feet.”Walter is a tremendous competitor,” said LSU track and field coach Dennis Shaver. “The biggest thing he’s brought to our throws group is that he loves to compete. For him to come in in his very first meet of the year [and] throw a personal best and then go to the second meet and throw another personal best, it’s a great tribute to him just believing in the system and coach Yush.” Senior weight thrower Rabun Fox has noticed personal improvement in his own technique since Henning has joined the team.”Not only is he a great addition to the team overall in terms of the national picture, but particularly each day working with him. He’s been a great help technically,” said Fox. “Due to his experience level and amount of coaching he has had prior to coming here, he is also very good at sharing some of his thoughts on how to improve.”Henning’s mother, Mary Beth, is just as thrilled as Henning’s father with his personal accomplishments.”We’re really proud of him,” Mary Beth Henning said. “In the beginning, he would never be happy with his performance. He would always find something that needed to be improved. I came to realize that that’s what keeps him going. He always thinks he can do better. That’s what keeps him training [and] keeps him competing.”Henning’s parents were supportive of his decision he made after what Mary Beth called “a year of inconsistent coaching,” and were in attendance when he won the event last weekend at New York’s Armory Track and Field Center.”I’m really, really happy down here,” Walter Jr. said. “This is everything I expected. Even off campus it’s exactly what I wanted. I didn’t really feel at home [at North Carolina]. Here we have cane fields. One of my best buddies is from Ponchatoula, and you don’t get more country than Ponchatoula.”Henning has won the weight throw in all three of his meets this season. “He’s happy as a clam,” Mary Beth Henning said.——Contact Rowan Kavner at [email protected]