Nicole Welling, then director of ASU triathlon operations, remembers the first time she saw Hannah Henry at practice, and got a glimpse of the person and athlete she would help coach for the next five years.
"I remember Hannah was just so tiny at the time … and she was just so quiet," Welling said. "But I watched them swim that night, and I was like, 'Wow, OK, she's going to be good this season.'"
Henry, 26, was a former ASU triathlete and two-time USAT National Collegiate Champion. She died on the morning of Feb. 8 after getting struck by a van while riding her bike in south Phoenix.
The driver, identified by investigators as 46-year-old Eric Hodge, admitted to using fentanyl before driving, according to police, and allegedly drove away after the collision. Hodge has since been arrested for reckless manslaughter with a bond of $750,000, according to abc15.
Within hours of the crash, memories began to pour in on social media from friends, former teammates and coaches mourning her loss. One week later, on Feb. 15, the cycling community held a tribute for Henry at Tempe Town Lake, where people congregated to pay their respects.
As friends and family spoke about their everlasting memories with her, the bittersweet moment evoked emotions throughout.
"In one way, it's a great sentiment to have the ghost bike," Frida Kaellgren, a former ASU diver and Henry's friend, said. "On the other hand, when it's right there in front of you, it's so obvious that she's not on that bike, right? So it's a nice sentiment, but at the same time it's a very hard reconciliation in your mind that she's not going to ride that bike anymore."
Ghost bikes are a common tradition in the cycling community, where a white-painted bike is placed at the site where a cyclist is hit by a car.
Henry competed at ASU from 2017 to 2021, and had success throughout her career as a Sun Devil, getting named the USA Triathlon Division I Freshman of the Year in 2017 and winning four team national championships in addition to her two individual ones.
But it's outside of athletics where Henry's presence truly lives on for her loved ones. Henry's initially subdued nature was evident to anyone who met her, but once they got to know her, a completely new side of her personality revealed itself.
Welling recalls setting up music for a swim practice one evening, with Henry there early as usual. She was surprised to hear Henry singing along to the song.
"It was like a new version of her that would come out every once in a while when (she was) around her best friends, and I just remember thinking, 'Wow, this girl, she has so many different layers to her,'" Welling said.
For Kyla Roy, Henry's friend and roommate during college, the day-to-day moments are what stand out most.
"We did galentines with our friends around Valentine's Day, we went for a lot of coffee rides on our bikes," Roy said. "We would ride for an hour. Hannah always wanted to ride more, but I was like, "Na, an hour is good for me,' and then we'd go get coffee and yap for an hour about anything."
Even after her time at ASU, Henry was intentional in keeping strong relationships with her fellow Sun Devils. As many of her friends began to move away after graduating, she was the one to get on planes and make visits. She always made an effort, and that's just one of the things that made her special, Kaellgren said.
Those relationships gave birth to several traditions that Henry and her friends maintained. As an avid baker, one of those routines was having a joint birthday party with Roy, whose birthday was only three days apart from Henry's, and making goodies for the occasion.
"She made vegan cakes, they still tasted better than any other cake I had before, and then my husband actually will brag to anyone he can talk to about how good Hannah's baking is," Roy said. "I actually still have some of our birthday cake in the freezer, so I'll have to find a special time to eat that."
Roy said she just recently found a cookbook that she and Henry bought together their freshman year. She said that Henry left sticky notes on nearly every page, marking each recipe she wanted to make.
She also had quite the creative side, making TikToks with her friends after strength training and painting her own art to hang up in her apartment. On top of that, she was a major Taylor Swift fan, recently attending a Taylor Swift-themed trivia session with her friends.
"Me and her and Kyla, just recently, we've gone to trivia more often," Kaellgren said. "We went to a trivia that was not at all a theme that we'd be good at, and we're not good at trivia, none of us are. But it was fun to try and pretend like we knew the answers."
Henry's legacy lives on in these small, everyday acts with her friends and family, and her impact on each one of them is profound, even getting Roy to quote Swift lyrics while describing her.
"She was the life of the party, and as Taylor Swift would say, she made the whole place shimmer," Roy said.
Edited by Alan Deutschendorf, Henry Smardo, Sophia Braccio and Ellis Preston.
Reach the reporter at pvallur2@asu.edu and follow @PrathamValluri on X.
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Pratham Valluri is a sports reporter at The State Press. He is a junior majoring in sports journalism with business and data analytics minors. He’s in his 5th semester with The State Press working previously as an opinion writer.
