After nearly leading the DeSoto boys track team to a team state championship in Class 6A this season, William Henderson is stepping down as head coach and is moving to rival Duncanville to be the boys head coach there.
Henderson will be introduced at a Duncanville ISD school board meeting Monday, a Duncanville ISD spokesperson told The Dallas Morning News on Saturday.
He spent one year at DeSoto after being announced as the school’s coach in August 2024. At the state meet in May, DeSoto was leading the team standings with three events remaining before finishing tied for fourth with 24 points — eight less than state champion Houston Lamar.
Henderson is returning to Duncanville, where he served as an assistant for several years and was the associate head track and field coach. He was the school’s interim boys head coach for part of the 2023 season, when Duncanville was the 6A team state runner-up.
Henderson replaces Clayton Brookins, who was reassigned to a role at an intermediate school in Duncanville ISD after the boys finished second as a team at the state meet three years in a row. Brookins has since left the district.
“Essentially they used an outside personal matter to justify removing me as head coach,” Brookins said in early March. “There were some people in the athletic department that didn’t like the way I handled things. It’s a personal thing.
“I’m outspoken, I’m not afraid to speak up on things, and I’m not afraid to do things my way within the rules. They took advantage of an outside situation that had nothing to do with the school or school district and used that to reassign me.”
Assistant athletic directors William Mitchell and Jason Reed assumed the head coaching duties for Duncanville’s boys track team this past season. Duncanville tied for 17th place at the state meet, and Georgia signee Brayden Williams was the 6A state runner-up in the 100 meters in 10.01, a wind-legal time that only four high school boys in U.S. history have beat.
With Brookins leading the program in 2024, the Duncanville boys broke the high school national record in the 4x200-meter relay by winning the 6A state title in 1:22.25. They also ran three of the top seven times in national history in the 4x100 relay and placed second at state in 39.47 that year.
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