Researching Paul Henderson

Henderson is best known for leading Team Canada to victory at the 1972 Summit Series against the Soviet Union. Played during the Cold War, the series was viewed as a battle for both hockey and cultural supremacy. Henderson scored the game-winning goal in the sixth, seventh and eighth games, the last of which has become legendary in Canada and made him a national hero: it was voted the "sports moment of the century" by The Canadian Press and earned him numerous accolades. Henderson has twice been inducted into Canada's Sports Hall of Fame: in 1995 individually and in 2005 along with all players of the Summit Series team. He was inducted into the International Ice Hockey Federation Hall of Fame in 2013.

A born-again Christian, Henderson became a minister, motivational speaker and author following his playing career. He has co-written three books related to hockey or his life. Henderson was made a Member of the Order of Canada in 2012 and of the Order of Ontario in 2014.

Henderson had in fact started playing for Durham in 1991, but as the team had not entered the County Championship at this point, the games were all part of the Minor Counties Championship.

Following his departure from the first team at the end of the 1992 season, in which Durham finished bottom of the table with just two wins from 22 games, Henderson played two further seasons of Second XI cricket. Henderson was an upper-middle order batsman and an occasional bowler for the Durham team.

Henderson was born in Washington D.C., but moved to Beatrice, Nebraska as a young child. He attended Wentworth Military Academy and Junior College in Lexington, Missouri, graduating in 1959. After three years in the U.S. Army, he continued his education at Creighton University and the University of Nebraska at Omaha.

Henderson began his career as a journalist at the Council Bluffs Daily Nonpareil (1962–1966), before moving on to the Omaha World-Herald (1966–1967), and The Seattle Times (1967–1985). While working in the newsroom as an investigative reporter at The Seattle Times in 1981, Henderson took a call from a man named Steve Titus.

Titus explained to Henderson that he was about to be sentenced for a sexual assault he did not commit. Henderson looked into the case and wrote a series of three stories entitled "One Man's Battle to Clear His Name, a story of rape, wrongful conviction and vindication," challenging the circumstantial evidence against Titus. When officials followed up on Henderson's leads, they found a man who resembled Titus and who eventually confessed to the crime. The report convinced a judge to reverse Titus' conviction.

Henderson won the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for his series. Titus died of a heart attack at age 36, just as he was on the verge of winning a major wrongful-conviction settlement.

Motivated by his experience with the Titus case, Henderson left the Seattle Times in 1985 to become a private investigator. Since 1988, Henderson had been an investigator for Centurion Ministries, a small nonprofit organization based in Princeton, New Jersey dedicated to vindicating the wrongfully convicted. They have helped free more than 30 people.

In addition to winning the Pulitzer, Henderson is also the winner of the C.B. Blethan Award (1977 and 1982), the Roy W. Howard Newspaper Award, Scripps-Howard Foundation (1982), and he was named an Outstanding Achiever by the American Academy of Achievement (1982).

Henderson died on December 7, 2018 at the age of 79 after a battle with lung cancer.