NORFOLK — When Ricky Rahne suited up to play quarterback for Cornell at the University of Pennsylvania on Nov. 17, 2002, he knew he’d never don the helmet and pads again.
Now Old Dominion’s sixth-year coach, Rahne was reminded this week just how important that knowledge was at the time.
ODU star linebacker Jason Henderson announced Sunday that his arduous two-year attempt to come back from a catastrophic knee injury had come to an end.
Henderson, a senior who threatened the NCAA single-season record for tackles in 2022 and led the nation in tackles per game the following season, wrote on social media that he planned to “step away from being a football player.”
ODU star linebacker Jason Henderson decides to ‘step away’ from football because of injury
The decision came as no surprise to Rahne, who said he and Henderson had spent “hours upon hours upon hours together” discussing a variety of topics, including the two-time All-American’s comeback attempt.
“This is a tough game played by tough people,” Rahne said Monday during his weekly news conference. “No one’s healthy, right? So for him to say, ‘OK, I can’t play anymore,’ you would have to imagine the amount of physical pain that he was probably in to get to that decision.”
After an injury originally suffered in the 2023 regular-season finale, Henderson surprised many by being ready for last season’s opener at South Carolina. But he hurt it again and missed the rest of the season.
Henderson had five tackles in the 2025 opener at Indiana, but he couldn’t go in last week’s 54-6 win over FCS foe North Carolina Central.
During Saturday’s postgame press conference, Rahne was reluctant to divulge much detail on Henderson’s status — likely with the knowledge that Sunday’s announcement loomed.
“This was not an irrational decision,” Rahne said Monday. “He had thought about it for a while, and he made an educated and rational decision, which I think was important.”
Henderson leaves as ODU’s career tackles leader, having set single-season marks at the school and in the Sun Belt Conference.
His No. 42 jersey will almost certainly hold a place of honor someday, and he will be remembered as one of the school’s greatest athletes.
Henderson, Rahne said, will remain around the team. His role as a de facto cheerleader from the sidelines over most of the past two seasons will continue.
So will the support of his teammates.
“I know he loves the game, so we’re always there for him,” said linebacker Jahleel Culbreath, a fellow senior who played for Ocean Lakes High in Virginia Beach. “We’re going to be there for him. So it’ll be all right.”
Henderson’s lengthy statement recalled how he’d been consumed with football since the fifth grade. He discussed the severity of his injury and how hard he had worked to come all the way back, to no avail.
“The passion I have for football and love for the game are two things hopefully no one can question about me,” Henderson wrote on Instagram. “I’m forever grateful for what football has given me. Football gave me a chance. Football taught me lessons. Football gave me a second family. Football will forever hold a huge part of me. I’m blessed and grateful for my career.”
The end for Henderson, certainly, was unplanned and unwanted. Rahne, who passed for 271 yards and a touchdown in a loss that long-ago afternoon at Penn, at least saw it coming.
“I was lucky enough to kind of know when the finality of that was, and I still think it’s the greatest gift that I’ve ever been given,” Rahne, 45, said. “Because not knowing when it’s over, and all of a sudden having to deal with it being over, is an incredibly emotional time in most people’s lives.”
David Hall, david.hall@pilotonline.com.
