Tony Alford recruited TreVeyon Henderson despite never seeing him play live in high school.

“Extremely unusual,” the Ohio State running backs coach said.

Then again, Henderson wasn’t your typical high school player. Alford watched video of Henderson play at Hopewell High School in Virginia. That was all Alford needed to know how talented he was.

“The game tape is actually matching the highlight tape,” he said. “It's the same thing. Every game was like a highlight reel. It was like, oh my goodness.”

Then Alford began to develop a relationship over the phone with Henderson. That’s when he knew how special he believes Henderson is.

“The depth of the conversations, and his intentionality about what he was doing − not only what, but why he was doing it, and why he thought the way it did and what he was intending to do with his life, it was just like, ‘This guy's cut a little bit different.’"

Of that, there’s little doubt. He had to be.

TreVeyon Henderson overcomes a rough hometown

A city of 23,000 located 20 miles southeast of Richmond, Hopewell is ironically named. Not a lot of hope exists there, and it’s not doing well.

“There’s a lot of violence, shootings almost every day, people get killed almost every day,” Henderson said. “Just all sorts of violence around there. Most kids don’t make it out of my city. Most people don’t make it past 18.”

LaKeesha Hayes-Winfield was determined that her three sons would be exceptions. She insisted they excel in school. As an incentive to her oldest, Ronnie Walker Jr., she offered him $100 if he made straight A’s. All of her sons have done so.

“They knew school was very important to me,” Hayes-Winfield said. “I always stayed on top of them with that.”

Her boys learned their work ethic from her.

“Since I’ve been out of college, I’ve always worked two jobs,” said Hayes-Winfield, who earned an accounting degree from Virginia State.

She prepares taxes and also works in the finance department of a business. To keep her kids off the streets when they were young, she signed them up for sports. TreVeyon played soccer and football from an early age.

All of her sons were athletically gifted. Ronnie is a running back for Virginia after transferring from Indiana. KeSean, who’s a junior, has gotten scholarship offers. Their late grandfather, Albert Lee Harris, was so good that he had the nickname “Airplane” because he soared through defenses. TreVeyon wears No. 32, his old number, in memory of him.

TreVeyon played primarily defensive back in middle school and started on defense as a freshman at Hopewell with Ronnie the starting running back. It wasn’t until the end of his sophomore year that Henderson got a chance to run the ball, and that came only because the other running backs were injured. Henderson broke a 79-yard touchdown run against Dinwiddie to give the Blue Devils their first win over their rival in years.

“I always knew I was a great offensive player and could do a lot of damage, but I just never got that opportunity,” Henderson said. “When I finally did, I definitely took advantage of it.”

TreVeyon Henderson was a 'pro's pro' at an early age

Henderson didn’t rely only on his natural ability. Ronnie was trained by Kerry Gray, a middle-school football coach and the Hopewell athletic director and track coach. TreVeyon asked Gray to train him, as well.

“He made a huge impact in my life,” Henderson said. “All the talks we had, he definitely changed my mindset and perspective on a lot of things. Working out with him, he brought the best out in me.”

Gray said he didn’t have to push Henderson.

“He has a mindset that he wants to be the best in the world, and then he has the mentality that he's going to put the work in to do it,” Gray said. “He was 16 years old working on his footwork in the weight room, working on his track and field sprint mechanics, and then catching passes. Tre worked out 3-4 times a day. He was a pro's pro at 16 years old.”

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Henderson finally got his chance to start at running back as a junior. He was spectacular. He averaged 12.2 yards per carry in gaining 2,424 yards and scoring 45 touchdowns while leading Hopewell to a state championship and undefeated season.

Henderson became a five-star prospect and the top-ranked running back in the country in the 247Sports composite rankings, drawing the attention of Ohio State and every top program in the country.

“Coach Alford, he checked up on me every day, like three times a day,” Henderson said. “It wasn't even about ball most of the time. It was about how I'm doing, how my family is doing. It showed me how much he cared about me, and I was able to build that trust. Then I just knew that's the coach I wanted to play for.”

TreVeyon Henderson 'thought differently'

Henderson committed in late March, just after the pandemic began. Virginia would eventually cancel its fall football season, but Henderson did not take it easy. He had Gray deliver weights to the Henderson house.

“He pretty much had the Hopewell High School weight room in his backyard,” Gray said. “LaKeesha would say, ‘You’re tearing up the grass! You’re tearing up the grass!' But he was faithful to the workouts.”

Henderson bulked up from 195 to 208 pounds without losing any of his speed. Without a season to play, he talked even more with Alford.

“You could just tell he thought differently than the average 16-, 17-, 18-year-old kid,” Alford said. “Very deep.

“He was buying books on Amazon about finances and investments and stuff like that, just worldly stuff for a young guy.”

Alford said Henderson wasn’t interested in hearing praise about how talented he was. He asked Alford to tell him what he needed to do to improve and how Alford would make him get better.

“That’s extremely rare because most guys just want to hear how good they are,” Alford said.

TreVeyon Henderson was always preparing for the future

Henderson enrolled at Ohio State in January 2021. Almost from the time he arrived, he was expected to win the starting job in a crowded running back room. His talent was simply too great to ignore.

Henderson had a 70-yard touchdown in the opener at Minnesota and then really announced his presence by breaking Archie Griffin’s OSU freshman record by running for 270 yards against Tulsa.

His production dipped late in the year as injuries and the freshman wall hit. He finished with 1,248 yards and ranked second nationally with a 6.8-yard average.

This year, with a full year of training with Mickey Marotti and his strength staff, Henderson expects even more.

“I’m definitely bigger,” he said. “I’m definitely faster, stronger, more powerful. I just can’t wait to show that.”

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Henderson ran for 91 yards against Notre Dame last week while sharing time with Miyan Williams.

As hungry as he is for football success, Henderson has other goals. When he was a kid, he would ride his bike around the nice parts of Hopewell and dream of buying his mom a big house like like the ones he saw.

That piqued his interest in real estate. Even before name, image and likeness rights were established last summer, he saved part of his scholarship stipend check and invested it in the stock market. That and his NIL money have allowed him to begin flipping houses.

“When I was reading (my finance books),” Henderson said, “I saw that most people get wealthy off investing in real estate, so I knew that was something I want to do.”

No matter what aspect of his life it is, Henderson is driven to succeed.

“He's a wonderful, wonderful kid,” Alford said. “He's not going to beat his chest and say ‘Look what I’ve done. Look at who I am.’ He's not into that. He’s so humble. I'm very appreciative of him, and I'm looking forward to him having a great season."

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio State football star TreVeyon Henderson driven to succeed