In sports, full circle moments happen quite often. Life has a funny way of working out that way.
For Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens, he experienced that full-circle moment at Elite Week, an event hosted by G.O.A.T Farm Sports where quarterbacks and receivers train, held at Del Valle High School in El Paso, Texas.
Pickens, who enters his third year in the NFL, modeled parts of his game after the late Chris Henry, a former standout wide receiver at West Virginia and then with the Cincinnati Bengals.
Turns out, Henry’s son, Chris Henry Jr., a wide receiver in his own right who is a five-star recruit out of Mater Dei High School in Santa Ana, Calif., Henry, who is committed to Ohio State, models his game after Pickens.
It’s a small world.
“It feels good to me personally, for like the specific person being him, ’cause I used to watch his pops at West Virginia like hella long ago,” Pickens said of Henry Jr. modeling his game after him, according to video on Instagram from Overtime. “Like, you would have to actually be knowing football, you feel me, to know about his pops.
“So I used to watch his pops hella, so for him to model his game after me, I respect it a lot. I kind of model my game after his pops. That’s what’s kind of crazy. That is crazy.”
That is crazy, considering Pickens is still only 23 years old. But football is a small world, and with Henry at 6-foot-5, 205 pounds, the third-year Steelers receiver is a good player to model his game after.
Henry father was a problem for defenses at both the collegiate and NFL levels.
At West Virginia from 2003-04, Henry was a dominant force, though one the Mountaineers’ coaching staff struggled to keep a handle on. Henry was the Big East Conference’s Freshman of the Year in 2003 after hauling in 41 passes for 1,006 yards and 10 touchdowns. In 2004, Henry caught 52 passes for 872 yards with 12 touchdowns, declaring for the NFL Draft.
While the numbers were impressive, he had a rocky history, getting ejected in 2004 against Rutgers for multiple unsportsmanlike conduct penalties. That led to WVU head coach Rich Rodriguez stating he was “an embarrassment to himself and the program” and Henry was suspended for that year’s Backyard Brawl against Pittsburgh.
Following his time in Morgantown, Henry was drafted by the Bengals in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. Across five seasons with the Bengals, Henry appeared in 55 games and hauled in 119 receptions for 1,826 yards and 21 touchdowns. His best season came in 2005 when he hauled in 36 receptions for 305 yards and nine touchdowns.
In his one playoff appearance as a rookie in 2005, Henry hauled in a 66-yard pass on the first play of the game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. That was ironically the play in which quarterback Carson Palmer tore his ACL on a hit from defensive end Kimo von Oelhoffen, changing the landscape of the game in a major way. The Steelers went on to win the game and ultimately the Super Bowl that season.
During his NFL career, Henry had a difficult time staying out of trouble off the field. Early in the 2006 season, Henry was suspended two games for violating the league’s substance abuse and personal conduct policies for incidents off the field. Ahead of the 2007 season, he was suspended eight games for violations of the NFL’s personal conduct policy.
After being waived by the Bengals in March 2008 following another off-field incident, Henry was later brought back that summer on a two-year deal due to injuries at the position for Cincinnati. He played 2008 and half of 2009 with the Bengals before being placed on Injured Reserve on Nov. 9 that year after suffering a broken forearm against the Baltimore Ravens.
A little over a month later, Henry tragically fell out of the back of a moving truck and died at the age of 26 years old. It was later revealed that Henry had developed CTE (chronic traumatic encephalopathy) during his playing career.
His legacy lives on in his son, who is considered the best WR recruit in the country. He is set to take his talents to Ohio State for the next few seasons, which has become a WR factory to the NFL in the last decade. He’ll hone his skills under former NFL receiver Brian Hartline for the Buckeyes, all while modeling his game after Pickens.
