The coaching staff expects a lot out of players, the fan base expects even more, but for running back Derrick Henry, it all pales in comparison to what he expects out of himself.
Henry’s high school position coach at Yulee High School, Pat Dunlap, said Henry will not let the success he has had in college slow him down. Henry creates a competitive environment for himself by setting personal goals.
“I know he’s outworking everybody over there,” Dunlap said. “If that meant he ran a 65-yard touchdown against Mississippi State and the DB was three yards behind him on his next touchdown, he wanted the DB to be five yards behind him.”
Even now in the midst of a record-breaking season that has seen Henry score 22 touchdowns in 12 games, it’s difficult to get Henry to talk about himself. He would rather praise his offensive line, the coaching staff or anyone else that has ever had the slightest impact on his career.
Henry is not interested in reliving any of the touchdown runs he makes look so easy. The mistakes are a different story.
Henry’s fumble remained with him after he rushed for over 200 yards and three scores in the same game against LSU.
“If he feels he is at fault for anything, it weighs on him,” Carol Rose, an office worker at Yulee High School, said. “It’s like the weight of the world is on his shoulders. He wants to be there for everyone.”
Many of the young men who have played for the Crimson Tide have bought into coach Nick Saban’s mission for perfection, but not all of them buy in as deeply and as quickly as others.
“By his own admission when he first came here, talked a lot about how his experience as a running back was only carrying the ball and that he had a lot to learn about pass offense, pass protection, being a receiver,” Saban said. “He certainly did a good job of developing and improving in all those areas.”
Getting it done on the field
Soon after coach Bobby Ramsay took the head coaching position at Yulee high school, he began hearing about a middle school running back that could change everything.
Ramsay dismissed it at the time, he had bigger problems. He wouldn’t keep his new job very long if he couldn’t find a single win on the schedule.
“[Then one day I see the] middle school kids that are 5-5, 5-6 and then all the sudden you see this 6-2 monster in the middle of them and I was like ‘Oh okay, that must be Derrick.’ ”
When Ramsay visited with his former star player in the spring, he saw Henry standing with Eddie Jackson and other teammates smiling and making jokes – just like old times. During moments like that, it’s easy to remember a game from Henry’s sophomore year in high school.
“We were trying to clinch our first playoff spot and we were down at halftime like 21-3,” Ramsay said. “At halftime Derrick kind of pulled everybody together and had some things to say to the team and in the second half when he went out there–it’s the closest thing I can equate to a basketball game [with] like Lebron James or somebody taking over late.”
Henry volunteered to play defensive end. Ramsay said, “He was like a duck in water on a three-point stance.” He blocked a punt and Ramsay thinks he scored every touchdown in what turned into a 38-35 come-from-behind victory.
Alabama hasn’t trailed often this season with the exception of the Ole Miss game, but when Tennessee took a late lead, it was Henry who found the end zone to put Alabama back on top. After the game the players said they never doubted the offense would get the score it needed. Why would it with talent like Henry’s waiting in the backfield?
“Back-to-back games his junior year we won both of them on two-point conversions at the very end of the game,” Ramsay said. “I never really thought twice about going for it, because I was just like, Derrick will get it.”
Henry always seemed to get exactly what the team needed. Even if the coaches didn’t ask or expect it of him at times.
“Early in his 10th grade year, I tell a story where we were like 3rd-and-40 something,” Ramsay said. “We were planning to punt so [we] just called a simple sprint draw play and Derrick busted out for a 46-yard run and got the first.”
After that game, Ramsay remembered the look on the opposing coaches following the game. It was a look of disbelief.
Remembering what matters
When Henry was in high school, he had plenty of things to work on like patience and developing a stronger lower body, but those weren’t the most important things to Ramsay.
“I always jokingly kind of equate coaching him to being like the guy that touches up the Mona Lisa,” Ramsay said. “You don’t want to do too much to it and give her eyebrows and ruin the painting. You want to make it look nicer, and I think a lot of the stuff with Derrick was just making sure he had all of his intangibles in order.”
Those intangibles Ramsay wanted his player to have included humility, structure and good character. In high school, he had most of those in spades thanks to the woman who raised him, his grandmother, Gladys Henry.
“He adores her, the sun rises and sets in his grandmother,” Rose said.
When Henry broke the high school career rushing record, his grandmother was the one Henry searched for after the game. Of course plenty of other fans wanted to speak to Henry before he could take his uniform off.
“After every home Yulee game … there would be 50 kids in line for his autograph or just wanting to speak to him, and he would stand under the goalpost and wait until he had a chance to speak with every single person in line and to me that is such a role model,” Rose said.
Dunlap said showing his fans – especially the younger ones – his appreciation is a responsibility that Henry takes very seriously. Sometimes that appreciation is as simple as sending out a tweet to Alabama fans or something more personable like giving away his gloves, but somehow, in between the practices and the classes and the pictures with his many fans, Henry finds time for the ones who have supported him from the beginning.
Before the Middle Tennessee game Henry reached out and invited two women who meant the world to him, Rose and another Yulee office worker, Gina Powell, to Bryant-Denny Stadium to watch him play.
“We didn’t realize we’d even get to spend any time with him [after the game],” Powell said. “[But] he was calling and asking where we were at 30 minutes after the game.”
Henry’s unexpected dinner invitation to Cheddar’s meant the world to the two women, but it wasn’t the first time Henry had showed them his appreciation. He sends them both text messages following every game, and he is quick to express his gratitude if he receives one of Powell’s care packages filled with some of his favorite snacks.
Perhaps the thing that means the most to Rose is Henry’s habit of beginning every conversation by asking how her family is doing, and that’s not something he only does with her he makes sure to do that with everyone. He pays attention to what matters most.
“[During games] he can tell us exactly where we were,” Rose said. “He does not miss a thing.”
Charge Ahead
On Saturday, Henry will get the chance to play against the team he grew up cheering for in the SEC Championship game when Alabama lines up against the Florida Gators.
“I’m a big fan of [Tim] Tebow,” Henry said. “That was a very exciting time to be a Florida fan. But I’m in college now, and I play for Alabama.”
His allegiance may have changed, but his love for Tebow has not. And when Henry got the chance to meet him, he said he felt a little star struck.
“He liked how emotional Tebow was, Derrick’s a real emotional guy,” Dunlap said. “I think he saw that in Tebow, but he also saw where when Tebow got off the field he could separate what happened in the field and what happens off the field and how important his image was to him.”
Keeping a clean image is something Henry prizes as well, but the parallels between the two do not stop there. Henry is currently breaking records set by Tebow himself, and many believe Henry is the favorite to bring home the Heisman award following the SEC Championship game, even if he turns in a less-than-memorable showing, but that’s not what Henry wants to talk about.
Henry wants to talk about what he needs to do to help his team win Saturday’s game, and afterward he will likely pass on Heisman questions and instead praise the efforts of his offensive line.
That’s just the kind of guy Henry is, and it’s the reason the people he left back in Yulee, Florida, are hoping to see him bring home the bronze award before it’s all said and done.
“I’m very proud of him and happy for him,” Ramsay said. “I know the kind of person he is and how much effort he puts into what he does, and it’s just great to see good things happen for people who deserve them.”
