told KTBC<\/a>. \u201cYou lose a young person, you\u2019re never the same.\u201d<\/p>\nLake Travis Independent School District superintendent Curtis Null identified Hensley in a letter to families. Null described Hensley as a \u201cvalued teammate, classmate and friend\u201d who had been part of the Lake Travis ISD family since attending Lake Pointe Elementary School. At the high school level, Hensley competed in both wrestling and football.<\/p>\n
Hensley suffered the medical emergency at around 8 a.m. Monday. The team canceled all activities for the rest of the day.<\/p>\n
\u2018The nicest kid\u2019<\/p>\n
Carter remembered Hensley as both a physically imposing athlete and a genuinely kind person.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was built like a Mack truck \u2014 a big, strong, powerful all-state wrestler, starter on the offensive line for us,\u201d Carter said. \u201cBut just the nicest kid.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the morning of the medical emergency, the team made the decision to move a sophomore kicker up to the varsity roster.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe had already went to that kid and said congratulations, welcomed him, encouraged him, and told him he was going to do great,\u201d Carter said. \u201cThat\u2019s just the kind of person that he was.\u201d<\/p>\n
Team returns to the field<\/p>\n
Carter said bringing the team back together on the field \u2014 even in a limited capacity \u2014 has been part of working through the grief.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe fact that we can get the kids out here and get something done right now, to be together, but also just for a few minutes get our minds off of the horrible tragedy that has happened \u2014 it\u2019s great to be out here with our kids,\u201d he said. \u201cBut the kids and the adults, everybody\u2019s hurting.\u201d<\/p>\n
He acknowledged the day would typically have been an intra-squad scrimmage and team picture day for all levels of the program.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly not the same,\u201d Carter said, \u201cand probably won\u2019t ever be.\u201d<\/p>\n
Support pours in<\/p>\n
Carter said the outpouring of support from coaches, schools and the broader community has meant a great deal to the program. He noted players at other schools have been wearing No. 75 \u2014 Hensley\u2019s number \u2014 in a show of support.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve had so many friends in the business, coaches across the country, everybody\u2019s just been incredible,\u201d Carter said. \u201cThat feels good, that they are thinking of us and they know that we\u2019re hurting right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
Read also:<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by KSAT – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AUSTIN, Texas \u2013 Lake Travis football coach Hank Carter said he did not have the words to describe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":408697,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[132,134,133,586,69777,394],"class_list":["post-408696","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-austin","tag-austin","tag-austin-headlines","tag-austin-news","tag-high-school-football","tag-lake-travis-high-school","tag-travis-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408696","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=408696"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408696\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/408697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408696"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408696"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408696"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}