The helmet came first. Then the gloves.
Christian Henry was five years old in 2013, small enough that both were comically oversized on him, standing on the turf at Dick Price Stadium and waiting for his uncle to walk off the field. James Church Jr. played wide receiver for the Spartans. Every game, the kid tried on the helmet and the gloves.
"It is like it was meant to be," Henry said.
Thirteen years later he wears No. 38 in green and gold, a freshman safety out of Salem High School, 5-foot-10, 175 pounds. And after every game he plays now, he hands his helmet and his gloves to his little brother.
"It is like a tradition," he said.
Norfolk, Richmond, Norfolk, Norfolk
Start with the grandfather, because the geography is the story.
James Church Sr. grew up in Norfolk and played his high school ball at Booker T. Washington. Then he left. He spent four years as a split end at the University of Richmond from 1983 to 1986 and became one of the most productive receivers the Spiders had to that point — good enough that people stopped bothering with his last name.
They called him Hands.
He captained the 1986 team and earned All-Yankee Conference honors as a senior. For years afterward he sat in Richmond's all-time top 10 in receiving. He got NFL tryouts. They didn't take.
So he came home to Norfolk. He is the general manager at Priority Ford now, and he has been in these stands ever since — first for his son, and now for his grandson.
He had a daughter, too. Ashley Church is Christian Henry's mother, and she is the reason this family's football runs through Norfolk at all.
Her brother, James Church Jr., went to Salem High School and then to Norfolk State, arriving in 2013. Same position as their father, same build, an inch taller.
He played all 12 games as a freshman and caught 11 passes. He saw time in 10 as a sophomore. As a junior he started the first three contests, threw an interception on a trick play at Rutgers, and then went down on a punt return against Hampton in the fifth game of the season. Knee. Year over.
He came back.
As a senior in 2016, wearing No. 4, Church played all 11 games and started nine. He finished fourth on the team with 24 receptions for 210 yards, caught his first career touchdown in the opener against Elizabeth City State, and caught a pass in every single game that fall — all eleven, the year after a knee injury ended his season early.
One of those games was at Richmond.
On Sept. 10, 2016, Norfolk State went to Robins Stadium to face the Spiders for the first time in the history of either program. This department's own game notes that week listed it among the storylines: the Spartans' senior receiver was walking into the stadium where his father had been a star three decades earlier. It sold out. Norfolk State lost 34-0.
Christian Henry was eight, and he was there for all of it.
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The tower
His other uncle, on his father's side, never played a down here.
Devon M. Henry graduated from Norfolk State in 2000, built a contracting company, endowed a STEM scholarship in 2014 that has since carried more than 50 students through this university, and served as Rector of the Board of Visitors through 2024. In July 2025, Norfolk State named the tower at the center of the academic quad after him.
Which means Christian Henry walks past his own last name on the way to class.
"I looked up and was shocked," he said. "I thought, wow, this is literally my uncle — our last name and everything. When I go in there, I sit on the bench and look up. I cannot believe it. It is insane. To this day, I smile every time I walk past it."
His teammates will not let it go. "Every day they say, oh, look, it is you. I just smile."
There is one thing people consistently get wrong.
"When they see the tower, they think he is my dad," Henry said. "I tell them, no, that is my uncle."
The house divided
His actual dad went to the other place.
Rodney Henry played four years of basketball at Virginia State, 2002 through 2006, and left with 1,007 career points across 108 games. He got better every season — 6.1 points a game as a freshman, 12.0 as a senior, with 173 career assists and 128 steals.
So when he talks about Virginia State, it isn't nostalgia. It's a record.
It also makes for a genuinely split household. His mother's family is Norfolk State football. His father's is Virginia State basketball.
"There still is to this day," Christian said of the rivalry, "especially now because Virginia State's homecoming is on the same day as ours. They are mad about it. They say, I am only wearing this because you are here. You all are still little state to us. I am like, come on now."
Virginia State recruited him, too. For a stretch of his senior year the family argument stopped being theoretical.
"That was weird," he said.
He picked Norfolk State anyway, settled by a conversation with defensive coordinator Steve Adams. "He said things I liked more than any other coach did during recruiting," Henry said. His parents, he said, told him simply: I like it here for you.
His aunt, Christina Ruffin, says the family stayed out of it deliberately beyond keeping him academically eligible.
"Christian pretty much did a lot of the recruiting phase with his parents," Ruffin said. "Everybody kind of stayed out of it, like, let him make the best decision for himself."
Learning the speed
Henry has played nearly everywhere — safety in little league, receiver and corner early in high school, running back and safety at Salem. Running back is still the one he'd pick if nobody was watching a depth chart. "I love running the ball," he said.
As a senior he ranked in the top 20 in the region with 77 tackles, five for a loss.
Ask for the one play to show someone who's never seen him, and he doesn't pick an interception. He picks a hit.
Green Run. The receiver was Zaevion Cleveland — First Team All-Region 5A at both wideout and cornerback, a two-time all-state honoree who caught 56 passes for 1,132 yards and 17 touchdowns as a senior before signing with Virginia Tech. He also has four inches and twenty pounds on Christian Henry. Cleveland ran across the middle.
"I came downhill and made a big tackle," Henry said. "A big play in the game. I got so hyped, and my teammates and coaches got hyped."
The adjustment to college has been three things, and only one of them is physical.
"The speed of the game," he said, "how to digest and break down film, and learning all the personnel."
The last two are where Jordan Saunders comes in. The redshirt junior safety out of Montross wears No. 1 and is listed at 5-10, 185 — the same height as Henry, ten pounds heavier. Whatever Henry is learning about playing this position at this size, he's learning it from someone who has already solved it.
"He tells me to stay patient and keep grinding on special teams," Henry said. "He also helps me with my notes and how to break them down. Our coach gives us tests, and I ask Jordan to walk me through things and quiz me without giving me the full answer."
Then, unprompted, the detail that says more about the two of them than any of it:
"It is weird, but we also somehow always match on game day."
The why
He is studying sociology, and he chose it on purpose after a conversation with his aunt. "I want to learn how to talk to people more," he said, "and how to speak professionally." Away from the building, he fishes — pier, beach, boat. "I do it all."
He wants the NFL. His grandfather got tryouts that didn't land. His uncle got four seasons and a bad knee.
"I want to continue the route my uncle Jay had," Henry said, "but push it much further."
And then there is what his father tells him, which turns out to be the thing he carries.
"My dad always tells me that after every game, he wants people asking, 'Who was number 38?'" Henry said. "He tells me to think about my legacy, why I am doing it and what my why is. He tells me always to make my family at home proud. That is my goal every time, no matter what happens."
The man in the Virginia State colors, the one who won't stop saying little state, is the one telling his son to be known on his own.
Saturday
When Norfolk State takes the field for the 61st Battle of the Bay, the stands will hold most of a family.
The grandfather who left Norfolk to become Hands Church and came home. The father in green and gold under protest. The aunt who works on this campus. The little brother waiting on a helmet.
One of them won't be there. Uncle Jay lives in Texas now — "the only one who cannot come to every game," Henry said. So he gets the phone call, after every game, good or bad.
But the call isn't the first thing. Before Texas, before the locker room, there's a moment on the field when Henry makes a play and looks up into the stands for one person.
Not the uncle whose name is on the tower. Not the father with the record book.
"I look at my mom," he said. "I owe it all to her."
Ashley Church is the daughter of Hands Church and the sister of Uncle Jay. Every piece of football in this story — the Booker T. Washington kid who became a star at Richmond, the receiver who came back from a blown knee to catch a pass in all eleven games, the helmet that gets handed down after every Saturday — reaches Christian Henry through her.
He looks for her first. He has been telling you why the whole time.
There is another one coming behind him.
Devon Henry's son — Christian's cousin on the other side of the family — arrives next year to play baseball at Norfolk State. Which means that next fall, the man whose name is on the tower will watch his own son walk past it, the same way his nephew does now.
Asked what he'd tell that cousin and his little brother, Henry didn't talk about football.
"Stay patient," he said. "The legacy always continues, no matter what happens. Do not let the hype get ahead of you. Stay humble."
Asked if he had anything for Spartan Nation, he gave four words.
"Behold the green and gold."
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