“My job is lacrosse,” says Charles Henry. It is a job he happily works at morning, noon and night.
Henry works days teaching youngsters as North Bay Director for All West Lacrosse, a premier lacrosse training and club program. After school, he works with more advanced junior high-age players. Now, he will spend his evenings practicing and directing high-school athletes as new head coach of the Casa Grande High School lacrosse program.
Henry coached for four years as an assistant under Matt Ogelsby and Matt Palasek as part of a staff that led the Wildcats to three Marin County Athletic League champions and two North Coast Section titles. At All West, he coaches three under-8 teams and five under-10 teams. He has also coached at the Ross Valley Lacrosse Club.
He said he will be able to coach at both All-West Lacrosse and Casa Grande since Casa has a lighted field that will allow the Gauchos to practice and play games in the evenings.
Henry grew up in Mill Valley. He and his wife, Ashley Einhaus, live in San Rafael. He coached and played in the Southern Marin Lacrosse League before playing for awhile in Virginia. “That was an incredible experience,” he says. “Lacrosse is massively popular in Virginia.”
Henry follows Ben Hewitt as Casa lacrosse coach and has some big strides to follow. Hewitt, who left Casa to take over the Sonoma State University program, guided the Gauchos for eight years, taking them from a club team to being one of the most successful programs in the North Bay.
“I feel like I’m following a legend,” Henry says. “We want to keep up the tradition Ben started here while adding our own.”
Last season, Hewitt guided Casa Grande to a 23-1 record, the Vine Valley Athletic League championship and the semifinals of the North Coast Section playoffs before the Gauchos were finally beaten by Redwood, 11-10.
Henry is appreciative but undaunted by the prospect of following that team. “We lose a great senior class,” the new coach notes. “But we have the potential to stay strong and keep the ball moving forward.”
Counted among Casa Grande’s 23 wins last season was a 16-11 victory over Marin Catholic.
For Henry, moving forward is not so much about who the Gauchos beat as how they play the game. “I worry about us, not the other team,” he explains. “I focus on us respecting the other teams and respecting the sport.”
For the new coach, that means playing the game right. “We’re really going to sell the fundamentals,” he says. “It is the fundamentals that we learn in February that we’re going to need in May.”
It isn’t only on the field that Henry wants the Gauchos to leave a mark, but also in the community.
“We want to stay involved in things like the Trevor Smith Foundation,” the coach says. “I want the players to know the Trevor Smith Story. I want to emphasize things like that.”
The Trevor Smith Memorial Foundation was formed in remembrance of the loss of Smith, a 13-year-old boy who died in a tragic traffic accident. He was an avid baseball and lacrosse player whose exuberance for life touched all who knew him.
“Having a Trevor Smith sticker on the back of our helmets is so important to our program,” the new coach says. “It is things like that that make Casa Grande lacrosse special.”
The new coach will have help in leading the Gauchos from J.C. Reid, one of the leaders in bringing lacrosse into Petaluma high schools; Reid’s son, Joe, a college star and former professional lacrosse player; and assistant coach Garrett Manzoni.
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