AUSTIN, Texas — Tiana Henderson can remember the moment her son first become fascinated by the game of basketball. 

“When he went to Chuck E. Cheese, he was on the machine and when he gets in the car and he says, ‘mom, can I do this for long?’” recalls Tiana. “I was like ‘you want to play it again?’ He was like, ‘yeah, for a long time.’ I was like, ‘OK, you can do basketball for long.’”

Her son, Legend Henderson, was hooked on basketball after that. He also loved football at an early age, too. Sports were a big part of his life and a reason he discovered something was wrong with his body.

“Every time I would run, I would limp and it would hurt,” says Legend. “I was like, what the heck?”

Legend’s family took him to see multiple doctors to see what was wrong. They got different diagnoses. Maybe it was just growing pains or maybe it was more serious. One doctor even told him he would never play sports again.

“I’m like 8 or 9, and I was like, how do you just a tell a kid that,” Legend remembers. “It was a hard thing to hear.”

Doctors finally discovered that Legend had fibrous dysplasia. Where he was supposed to have a bone in his hip, there was just tissue and that was causing the pain. After a while, his pediatrician recommended he visit Scottish Rite for Children, an orthopedic hospital in Dallas. It was there he found out he could play sports again but would need a few metal rods and screws placed in his leg. That surgery worked and allowed him back on the court. A few years later, after Legend hit a growth spurt, he had to have another surgery to fit new rods and screws into his leg that were bigger.

“Everything is going well. My freshman year I’m balling out and having fun out there,” says Legend. “Towards the end of my freshman year, I start to notice a buildup in my knee and it got swollen.”

Tests didn’t initially show that anything was wrong, so Legend would ice his knee but kept playing. The swelling kept coming back, though.

“One of these nights I woke up, and it was like this yellow stuff coming out of my knee,” says Legend. “I’m like mom, mom I got this stuff coming out of my knee.”

The family rushed to Dallas, and they drained Legend’s knee. The swelling went down initially, but came back. They tried putting a tube in his knee to drain it, but that didn’t last. It was eventually determined that Legend had developed an infection in his knee. 

“I got on seven different meds because they just needed to get this infection out of there,” says Legend. “After the sixth med, my doctor takes my parents out of the room. They were like if this seventh med doesn’t work, we’re going to have to consider taking his leg because it started spreading to my organs.”

Legend would need another surgery, this one more serious than the operations before.

“My parents told me that I almost didn’t make it back out of that surgery,” says Legend.

“It was tough to see your son go through that,” says Taswell Henderson, Legend’s father. “You’d give anything for your kid.”

The seventh medication was able to cure the infection, and Legend returned home. When he went back for his check-ups a few months later, the doctor discovered something unexpected.

“He goes that’s bone forming. He said buddy I don’t know what deceased family member is an angel or god,” Tiana recalls. “He says you’re forming bone again.”

“The tissue just turned back into bone. I’m like huh,” says Legend. “So I’m like ‘OK, I can play sports again?’ He was like ‘yeah.’”

Legend no longer needed the rods and screws in his leg. After a few months of rehab, he was able to return to playing basketball. 

“I just started crying because I didn’t think I was going to be back on that court anytime soon,” says Legend.

Legend had a new purpose and incredible motivation to get back in shape and make the most of this miracle. He’s now in his senior season playing on the varsity team at Weiss High School. For most of the year he’s been a role player, coming off the bench for the Wolves team. But in a pivotal district game with major playoff implications on Jan. 28, it was his time to have a moment. With his team trailing Georgetown in the second half, Legend caught fire from beyond the arc.

“Came out of that timeout, first 3, bam here we go,” says Legend. “Second 3 I was like oh yeah, it’s on.”

Legend would hit four 3’s in that second half and score 14 points, helping Weiss to a victory. But this had meaning beyond just a being a basketball game.

“I was like he’s here,” says Taswell. “When I say someone’s worked hard and held down the fort in the classroom also, ain’t nothing prouder of a father than to see that moment.”

“The first word that comes to mind in vindication,” says Tiana. “Just to see everything he has come back from, all that flashed before me, and I was like look at this.”

“For the first time in a long time I just sat in my room and cried because it was such a good feeling,” says Legend. “I didn’t think I was going to be here a couple of years ago and then I have that game and I’m just like I can do anything.”

“That moment let me know my man will do whatever it takes to make it to the point that he wants to make it to,” says Taswell. “To be honest, I could’ve died that night and been like cool, he’s good to go.”

In the immediate future, Legend is hoping to lead this Weiss team into the playoffs and play basketball in college. He also has plans to be a welder and start his own business at some point.