Derrick Henry

Derrick Lamar Henry Jr. (born January 4, 1994) is an American football running back who is currently a Free Agent of the National Football League (NFL).

Nicknamed "King Henry", he is known for his imposing "bell cow" style of play and larger stature than the average running back.

Born and raised in Yulee, Florida, Henry set the national high school football record for career rushing yards with the Yulee Hornets.

He ran for 2,465 yards and 26 touchdowns as a freshman in 2009.

He was named a first-team All-Coast selection at running back in 2010 after rushing for 2,788 yards and 38 touchdowns while averaging 8.9 yards per attempt.

As a track & field athlete, Henry competed as a sprinter at Yulee from 2010 to 2011.

He rushed for 2,610 yards and 34 scores as a junior in 2011 to earn first-team All-Coast honors from the Florida Times-Union.

He set the Florida high school record with a 510-yard performance against Jacksonville Jackson (a record he held until 2021 ) and averaged 9.2 yards per carry and 327.8 yards per game as a senior, finishing the season with a state-record 4,261 yards and 55 touchdowns.

He finished his high school football career with 12,124 career rushing yards, which broke Ken Hall's career record.

During this time, Henry began receiving the nickname "King Henry" by stadium crowds and local television news reports as he began aiming to break the national high school rushing title.

He also rushed for 153 career touchdowns.

His career touchdown totals rank fifth all-time.

In four years at Yulee he averaged more than 250 yards a game and never rushed for fewer than 100 yards in a game.

He posted a personal-best time of 11.11 seconds in the 100-meter dash at the 2011 FHSAA 2A District 3 Championships, where he placed seventh.

He was also a member of the 4×100 and 4×400 squads.

After originally committing to the University of Georgia, Henry committed to the University of Alabama on September 28, 2012.

He held offers from many of the top college football programs in the country, including USC, Notre Dame, Tennessee, Florida, and Clemson.

His number was eventually retired by Yulee.

He played for the East squad in the 2013 U.S. Army All-American Bowl, where he rushed for 53 yards with a touchdown and a two-point conversion.

Considered a five-star recruit by ESPN.com, Henry was listed as the No. 1 athlete (player with no designated position) in the nation in 2013.

Henry attended and played college football for the University of Alabama from 2013 to 2015 under head coach Nick Saban.

He majored in communication.

As a true freshman in 2013, Henry rushed for 382 yards on 36 carries with three touchdowns in a backfield largely dominated by T. J. Yeldon and Kenyan Drake.

On October 19, against Arkansas, he had 111 rushing yards and his first collegiate rushing touchdown in the 52–0 victory.

He played college football for the Alabama Crimson Tide, where during his junior season, he broke Herschel Walker's single-season college rushing yards record in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), won the 2015 Heisman Trophy, the Doak Walker Award, the Maxwell Award, and the Walter Camp Award, and was a key part of the 2015 Alabama Crimson Tide football team that won the 2016 College Football Playoff National Championship.

Henry was selected by the Titans in the second round of the 2016 NFL draft, where he has since been a four-time Pro Bowl selection.

A backup for most of his first two seasons in the league, Henry emerged as the Titans' feature back near the end of the 2018 season.

He graduated on May 4, 2018.

That same day, he published an article in The Players' Tribune thanking his late grandmother for the inspiration to continue pursuing his degree.

He led the NFL in rushing yards for the 2019 season, as well as rushing touchdowns (tied with Green Bay Packers running back Aaron Jones).

In 2020, Henry again led the league in rushing yards and touchdowns and became the eighth player in NFL history to rush for over 2,000 yards in a single season, and the second Tennessee Titan to do so, after Chris Johnson achieved it in 2009.

Henry won the 2020 Associated Press NFL Offensive Player of the Year Award.

After missing more than half of the 2021 season to injury, he made his third and fourth Pro Bowl appearances in the subsequent two seasons.

Derrick Lamar Henry Jr. was born in Yulee, Florida, a suburb of Jacksonville, to Stacy Veal and Derrick Henry Sr., aged 15 and 16 respectively.

Henry's father, known as "Big D", was absent for much of his childhood, having been arrested 20 times for various crimes including drug and prostitution-related offenses, and was consequently in and out of prison and had trouble maintaining employment.

His mother became a hemodialysis technician.

Henry was raised primarily by his grandmother, Gladys, who nicknamed him "Shocka", as his birth shocked the whole family, given his parents' young ages.

He developed a close relationship to his grandmother, whom he cites as very influential in his upbringing.

Henry attended Yulee High School, where he was a three-sport star in football, basketball, and track.

He played as a running back for the Yulee Hornets football team.