One in a series on athletes with Arkansas ties competing at the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro.

Laverne Henderson hasn't talked to his youngest son much in the past couple of weeks.

It's been about a month since Reggie Dillon has spoken to one of his most accomplished pupils.

Same goes for Pierre Goode.

[ARKANSANS IN RIO: Full coverage of 24 in Olympics]

It's not that Jeff Henderson is snubbing his father and former coaches. There's just not much to talk about, with the most important night of his career looming on Friday in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

"I don't bother him," Laverne said. "If he needs something, he'll call me."

Laverne certainly follows what his son is doing, though. He watched last month as Jeff long jumped 28 feet, 2¼ inches at the U.S. Olympic Trials, which won the event and earned his first spot on the U.S. Olympic team.

On Friday night, Laverne will settle in front of a TV in his McAlmont home with his wife, Debra, who is bed-ridden while suffering from Alzheimer's, and watch as Jeff tries to become the second native Arkansan to win an Olympic medal in the long jump.

Laverne has helped guide his son's Olympic aspirations from his youth. First at AAU events, then at Sylvan Hills High School, then to three different colleges and now as a pro. He insists he's not nervous. Jeff isn't either, Laverne said. No need to be nervous considering what it took to get to this point.

"He's locked in," Laverne said.

An unlikely path

Jeff Henderson is the youngest of five children raised by Laverne and Debra on E. 49th St. in McAlmont, an unincorporated community that sits north of I-40 and straddles Jacksonville Highway.

Laverne said Jeff started out as a left-handed pitcher in baseball. But one day while Jeff was moping about being cut from a basketball team, his father took him to one of his brother's track meets. On the way, Laverne packed an extra set of shorts and a pair of shoes, just in case. When Jeff saw the other boys running, he begged his father to let him join them.

The club coach happened to have an opening in the 400 meters. So Jeff put on the shorts and shoes and ran onto the track. As Jeff made the final turn having never competed in a race before, he began to stop.

"He had forgot to run all the way around," Laverne said. "We said, 'Jeff, keep running!' When we finally told him, he won it."

Jeff's been running and jumping ever since, first at Sylvan Hills High School, then on to Hinds Community College in Jackson, Miss., then at Florida Memorial in Miami and finally at Stillman College in Tuscaloosa, Ala.

Along the way Jeff has reached the pinnacle of his sport while battling through ADD -- low ACT scores kept him from SEC track programs, Laverne said -- through the pain of his mother's illness and the unlikelihood of a kid from tiny McAlmont -- population estimated at 1,800 people -- making it big in just about anything.

"He was just driven to do it," Laverne said. "He kind of knew he wanted to do it."

"He's what we call a glider," said Rocky Faucett, his coach at Sylvan Hills. "He never looked like he was running very hard, but you could tell he had so much natural ability."

Back-yard boost

Laverne, a lifelong McAlmont resident who has worked for 30 years at at the Little Rock Air Force Base and for 20 years at Sylvan Hills High School, has tried to help and push him at every step.

First, he tricked Jeff into joining a track team. Then, when Jeff was having trouble beating a teammate, Laverne devised a contraption that helped his slender son build lower-body strength.

As Laverne remembers, Jeff was about 16 when a teammate kept beating him in a sprint. Jeff asked his dad if he could buy him a sled to push around the backyard to get more explosive.

"I don't have no money to buy a sled," Laverne told him.

But Laverne did have an old 350-engine block and an old car hood sitting in his back yard. So he flipped over the hood, put the engine block on top, then asked some friends at the Air Force Base to rig a parachute harness for his son. Jeff strapped the harness over his shoulders, attached the other end to the car hood and began pulling it through the yard.

"He would walk with it for a while, and the next two or three days he was jogging with it," Laverne said. "Before the week was out, he was running with it."

The training regime drew a crowd of curious onlookers, but Laverne remembers Jeff beat his old teammate the next time they raced. Then, Laverne's friends at the Air Force base welded some metal together with a post sticking up through the middle, which served as a portable weight rack, of sorts. Jeff could put as much weight on as he liked, and still hook up the harness and drag it through the back yard.

Out of the limelight

The improved leg strength helped lead Jeff to Hinds when he couldn't get into any SEC schools. Laverne remembers talking with coaches at Arkansas and was told by those at Florida that Jeff was "No. 1 on their big board." But poor test scores brought on by his struggles with ADD made it so those paths weren't realistic. So he went to Hinds, which Laverne said ended up being the best thing for him.

"One thing about Dillon I liked is that he put them up against the big boys," he said.

He went to meets in Fayetteville, Baton Rouge and Oxford, Miss., and Jeff was routinely among the best at the 100, 200 and the long jump.

"Jeff was winning every meet that we went to," Dillon said. "He goes into meets with a lot of confidence."

He won five national championships in two seasons at Hinds -- four in the long jump, and he was a part of the 400-meter relay team that won an NJCAA title.

Still without an academic path to an SEC school, Jeff went to NAIA Florida Memorial in Miami, where he placed third in the long jump and fourth in the 100 at the national meet. Laverne said a dispute over injury treatment led him to leave for Stillman. There, he won the NCAA Division II title in the 100 meters, the long jump and finished second in the 200.

Stillman Coach Pierre Goode said he liked having Jeff's versatility on his team, but knew putting him in so many events was holding him back in a way.

"I told him 'As soon as you get away from here, you focus on the long jumping and the sprinting,' " he said.

Getting serious with Al

College degree in hand, Jeff hooked up with Al Joyner, an Arkansas State alum who won a gold medal in the triple jump in 1984, and turned into a full-time long-jumper.

With Joyner's help, Jeff finally had the technical expertise to go with his natural ability and driven demeanor.

"I know the long jump," Goode said. "But to be more in tune with the approach, and having the focus on hitting the board, Al has done a great job with getting him prepared and go through the progressions of jumping."

Jeff moved to San Diego to train full-time, and signed a contract with Adidas. Then he won the USA Track and Field Outdoor championships in 2014, then last year won a gold medal at the Pan Am Games in Toronto. This year, he took first in the Olympic trials -- his wind-aided jump of 28-2¼ is the best in the world for 2016 -- and on Friday will set his sights on his highest achievement.

"He's just got to go out there and get it done," Dillon said.

A generous gift

Laverne received a phone call a couple of weeks ago from a local pastor he had never met. Paul Holderfield, of the Friendly Chapel in North Little Rock, had seen a story on a local news channel about Jeff and wanted to help raise money to get Laverne to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

Laverne passed on the offer of a plane ticket and hotel room to stay behind with his wife Debra, whom he met in high school and was diagnosed with Alzheimer's about 10 years ago. She lays bed ridden in their McAlmont home, surrounded by banners and pictures of Jeff's accomplishments and a TV on which to watch his latest races.

Two of Jeff's older sisters will be making the trip, thanks to a donation of about $8,200 from a men's group that Holderfield leads at his church each week.

"They're excited," Laverne said. "They've never been out of the country before."

The Olympics won't be the end of Jeff's athletic year, though. When he returns, Laverne said Jeff will head to training camp with the Kansas City Chiefs, hoping his speed and football background -- he played receiver and corner at Sylvan Hills -- can help him catch on as a receiver or a kick returner.

"Football was his first love," Laverne said.

Laverne hopes he drops off some new hardware before he heads there, though.

"I talked to Al, and he said he's ready," Laverne said. "I think he's settled in. It's going to be a battle."

Sports on 08/10/2016