Gold Medal cut

Adam Henderson shows Capt. Tim Trainer, NAVAIR Depot North Island executive officer, the Olympic Gold Medal that his daughter won in Athens, Greece. Photo by Scott Janes

Employee’s daughter wins Olympic gold

By Bill Bartkus

NAVAIR Depot North Island employee Adam Henderson, a production controller with the H-60 program (Code 6.2), and Bonnie Trotter, a Depot contractor (Code 3.1), have something in common that both didn’t know until they watched the Summer Olympic Games. They are related to athletes who won Olympic Gold in Athens, Greece. As further coincidence, both athletes were on the same team and in the same race.

Henderson’s daughter, Monique, and Trotter’s niece, DeeDee, ran the four by 1,600 meter relay during the final hours of the Summer Games last month and ran their way to Olympic Gold. Henderson ran the second leg of the race and accepted the baton from Trotter. The four women ran like the wind and finished the race in 3 minutes, 19.01 seconds. Thirty minutes later, the team was standing on the winner’s podium with olive wreaths on their heads and Olympic gold hanging from their necks.

Henderson said that his youngest daughter started running when he and his wife, Elaine, started a youth track club for 8- to 16-year-old children. “Monique was seven years old at the time and came out for practice, and she hasn’t stopped running since,” said the proud father of three daughters.

Monique, 21, is a 2001 graduate of San Diego’s Morse High School and is in her senior year at UCLA majoring in sociology. Like her two older sisters, she received a track and field scholarship.

“Her victory was bittersweet,” Henderson said. “She wanted to run in the 400 meters but finished fifth. She was selected from a pool to run in the relay.” She ran in the preliminary the night before her big race.

This was Monique’s second trip to the Summer Games. She made the 2000 Olympic team and went to Sydney, Australia, as the youngest member ever of the U.S. Track and Field team. “She was 17 and had just finished her junior year at Morse,” said Henderson.

The Hendersons saved their money and flew to Sydney, but Monique didn’t even run so much as a prelim. This year, however, she ran well at the U.S. relay camp in Munich. The track and field coach selected her to run in the prelims in Athens. He made the right decision.

“Monique called us after the race,” Henderson said, “and asked if we had heard the news.” NBC’s telecast was delayed until that evening. “I answered the phone, and when she told me that she had won the gold everyone in the house started cheering. We’re so proud of her.”

Henderson said that Monique hopes to compete in the 2008 Olympic Summer Games in Beijing, China.

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