Henderson, 20, was one of 64 NBL hopefuls to attend a basketball training camp in Melbourne this winter.
The shooting point guard earned starting-five honours after the week-long trial, but never received a call from any of the league’s teams.
Instead, it was Crows recruiting manager Matt Rendell who picked up the phone.
“A gentleman, who shall remain nameless, rang up and told us that we should go to a basketball training camp in Melbourne that was run over a week probably mid-year,” Rendell said, after Adelaide took Henderson with their first pick in Tuesday’s NAB AFL Rookie Draft.
“I sent [recruiter] Hamish Ogilvie over there to watch it. He watched it for a couple of days and came back with a list of five names he thought might be able to transfer to AFL footy or football, in general.
“He rang up the five and one of the five had played footy up until age 15 and that was Ricky Henderson. He hadn’t played for four years, so our plan of attack was to try and get him over here to train with us and have a bit of a run around to see how he looked.
“But he actually registered himself with Trentham in the Ballarat League. He played three games of footy, we sent three different recruiting people there and in the three games, he killed them.
“It was a pretty ordinary standard of footy, as you could imagine, so that’s why we decided to get him over here for a week and have a look at him in our training environment.”
The athletic lad from Ballarat wowed the Crows’ coaching and fitness staff with his results during his one-week stay.
“He tested up with our best midfielders for athletic prowess, in the vertical jump he was outstanding and he did a great beep [test],” Rendell said.
“All his general skills could use a bit of polish for a bloke who hasn’t played for four years, but when you look at him and think he hasn’t played for four years, his skills are outstanding really.
“It’s a little bit of a project and a punt, in a way, but that’s what the rookie draft should be about. He’s got loads and loads of talent and he’s a great kid, so that’s the most important thing.”
Henderson was one of three players picked up by Adelaide in the 2008 NAB AFL Rookie Draft.
Ex-Brisbane Lion and West Adelaide midfielder Chris Schmidt was offered a lifeline at pick number 26 and the Crows confirmed Irishman Brian Donnelly’s international rookie selection with pick number 55.
Rendell said the club had opted to pass with its third-round pick (number 41), because it was not interested in any other nominated players.
The Crows will now turn their attention to developing the new-look squad.
“Over the last two years we’ve picked up 21 players [in the drafts], so we’re talking half our team,” Rendell said.
“You can take Brad Moran out of that because he was 21, but the rest of them are 20 years of age and under.
“We’ve had a lot of players near retirement age and we had the oldest list in the league at the time, so that was always going to change over the next few years.
“When you look back at on it, the last two drafts I think have been pretty good drafts compared to maybe a few earlier, so it was probably good timing really to turn over those players.”
