Layla Henderson wants to be an FBI profiler. In the meantime, the Naperville North guard tries to stop top scorers.

Naperville North senior guard Layla Henderson has a reputation for doggedly chasing down opponents’ best player.

But leading scorers aren’t the only thing the Johns Hopkins recruit is interested in catching.

Henderson wants to become an FBI profiler.

“She has a strong interest in serial killers,” her father, Lee, said. “She studies and profiles them.”

That has led to some interesting interactions between Layla Henderson’s parents and her teachers.

“Her sophomore year, she wrote a paper on the correlation between the brains of toddlers and the brains of serial killers,” Lee Henderson said. “At the parent-teacher conferences, her teacher said, ‘If I didn’t know the family better and know Layla better, I might be a little concerned.’”

There’s no need to worry, unless you’re playing against Layla Henderson. She’s a well-rounded student-athlete who excels on the court for the Huskies (4-4) and off it, and she has an array of interests, including reading.

“She’s a very big reader, like all the time,” senior guard Abby Drendel said. “She literally has a book list where she tells all her friends recommendations for books and what she rates them out of 10.”

How many of those books has Drendel read?

“Oh, none of them,” she said. “She likes the ones with big words, so …”

Indeed, Layla Henderson’s reading tastes include history and sociology. She said she intends to study the latter in college, along with political science and Spanish, before attending law school.

But how did she become interested in serial killers?

“I don’t really know,” she said. “My book interest has always swayed toward that genre, and that interest helped me be more empathetic and kind of understand how different people operate.”

Television also played a role.

“I did binge-watch ‘Criminal Minds’ during COVID,” said Layla Henderson, who also watches “CSI,” “NCIS” and “Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.” “That definitely contributed to it. I studied the different developmental stages and how sometimes serial killers would lack that social/emotional piece.”

She gets her basketball skills from her father, who played at Skyline High School in Oakland, which is the alma mater of former NBA players Gary Payton and Greg Foster.

But even Layla Henderson’s mother, Kim, a lawyer, is amazed by the amount of reading she does.

“She reads like crazy,” Kim Henderson said. “Are you really going to read another book right now?”

Layla Henderson, who has a 4.3 GPA, quenches her thirst for knowledge despite a busy schedule. She’s a member of the National Honor Society and the Spanish National Honor Society, is vice president of the student government, is a physical education leader and volunteers for the teen board of the Big Shoulders Fund.

“Playing a sport helped me manage my time better, just because I always knew I had a very rigid schedule,” she said. “I could plan my interest around that.”

The plan for her on the court is always the same. Layla Henderson is assigned to the opposing team’s fastest player, and that often means having to sacrifice her offensive game.

She had to guard La Lumiere star Ashlynn Shade, a UConn commit, on Tuesday. Shade scored 25 points to rally the Indiana prep school from an eight-point second-quarter deficit to a 54-42 win.

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But the 5-foot-9 Henderson, who had nine points, four rebounds, three assists and three steals, acquitted herself well.

“Defense has been my thing since my freshman year,” she said. “I knew she was going to get a decent amount of their points, but I wanted to make her work for them. I think I did my piece.”

Drendel said Henderson always does.

“Layla’s length 100% affects everybody she plays against,” Drendel said. “That girl was fast, but Layla was beating her to the spot every time. Layla is overall a great player, offensively and defensively.”

Naperville North coach Erin Colletti things highly of Henderson too.

“She definitely has a great basketball IQ,” Colletti said. “She’s also a supportive teammate, very kind and respectful. She works her butt off, and she’s phenomenal to coach.”

Matt Le Cren is a freelance reporter for the Naperville Sun.