Kirksey's father, Elmer, passed away from a heart attack in 2010 prior to Christian's freshman year at Iowa. He was only 17 years old at the time. The youngest of seven children to Elmer and Patrice Kirksey, Christian played drums and sang in the choir of his father's church in St. Louis, Mo., since he was seven. Christian credits a lot of his leadership qualities to what his father taught him. "It comes from just looking up to my father, and just seeing the type of man he was and the type of things he did and the way he carried himself," Kirksey told WKYC-TV in Cleveland in 2014.