Photo by: GoDucks.com
Offseason of Improvement For Herbert Includes Service Trip to Uganda
07/24/18 | Football, O Heroes, @GoDucksMoseley
During a week off from school and summer workouts in June, UO quarterback Justin Herbert joined 20 other student-athletes on the athletic department’s annual service project with Courts For Kids.
No matter the situation, Justin Herbert never wants to be caught unprepared.
On the football field, he proved a quick study at Oregon, two years ago becoming the first true freshman to start for the Ducks at quarterback since 1983. Herbert enters his junior season this fall already having become the fastest player in school history to reach 3,000 career passing yards.
Herbert's studious nature is an asset in the classroom as well, of course. A biology major, he was named first-team academic all-American last fall, when he recorded a 4.08 grade-point average.
Whether reading defenses or reading a textbook, Herbert thrives thanks to his preparation. And it was no different earlier this summer, when the Oregon quarterback joined 20 fellow UO student-athletes on the athletic department's annual Courts for Kids service trip, to build a sports court in a small village in northern Uganda.
This was the seventh year in a row a group of UO student-athletes participated in a Courts for Kids project, and the first that took the Ducks to Africa. The others were to Central America; Herbert's former roommate, ex-UO football player Ivan Faulhaber, participated in the 2017 project, in Nicaragua. Spurred on by Faulhaber's stories from his experience — and also wary of the hurdles that would have to be overcome — Herbert eagerly signed on for the trip to Uganda.
"I'd heard the stories of everything that could go wrong," he said. "So I was prepared — I was way over-prepared. And people gave me a hard time about that."
Some of the items Herbert packed for the trip — making him the target of some good-natured ribbing — were unnecessary: a fire-starting kit, and a water ionizer. But his preparation paid off in other ways. Thanks to Oregon football's strength and conditioning program, led by coach Aaron Feld, Herbert's body held up well despite back-breaking work shoveling and spreading concrete for the sports court, he said. And team nutritionist Taylor Hughes loaded him up with enough protein bars and other snacks that Herbert only lost about five pounds over the weeklong trip, weight he quickly put back on upon returning home.
Herbert may have left a few pounds in Uganda, but he came home with the weight of invaluable life experience. The soft-spoken Eugene native "was about as far out of my comfort zone as it gets," immersed in a foreign country with a group of fellow student-athletes he mostly knew only in passing. Though he's learned to be more emphatic in the locker room and on the field, Herbert appreciates keeping a low profile away from the game, something nobody could afford to do in order to get the most out of the cultural experience of the Courts for Kids trip.
"His size and strength were obviously an asset," said UO assistant athletic director for student-athlete development Katie Harbert, who has helped coordinate the Courts for Kids trips over the years, and who was one of four athletic department staffers in Uganda for the week. "But I think more than that were the leadership Justin showed with his intentional effort to leave his comfort zone, in order to have a transformative experience. He made a huge effort to get to know the other student-athletes and staff members, as well as the people of the community."
The UO delegation built the sports court in the northern Uganda village of Porogali, which applied to participate through Courts for Kids under the leadership of community member Ochan Moses, a former professional basketball player. That region of Central Africa still is recovering from the nearly 30-year insurgency waged by Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army, from 1987-2006; the Ducks encountered many villagers who'd been displaced by the fighting, some who had been forced to live in government camps.
"I asked one of the adults in the community what it meant that we were there building a court with them — which to us signifies a chance to play, and make friends, and learn a sport — and her response was, 'it means that peace has finally returned to our community, because Americans are living here with us,' " Harbert recalled. "I realized in that moment the extent to which the war affected their lives, and how much it was still impacting them even though it's been over for more than a decade."
Porogali has no running water and scant electricity, comforts of home the UO contingent would live without for the week. They slept on thin foam pads spread out on dusty floors, immersed among the locals — human and otherwise.
"If you didn't tuck your mosquito net in — which I did a really good job of each night — rats, mice, bats would get in there," Herbert said.
A fellow football player awoke one night to a bat inside his netting; another had a rat fall from the ceiling onto his netting. And one of the staff members, apparently not as fastidious as Herbert when it came to tucking in his mosquito net, found that a mouse had taken up residence in his pillow case.
"We'd wake up at 2, 3 in the morning, and someone would be screaming," Herbert recalled with a chuckle. "And it'd be a different person each night."
Soon after arriving in Porogali, though, they acclimated to the conditions and settled into the rhythm of the work. Lacking a machine mixer, Herbert and the Ducks had to combine and mix sand, rocks and cement by hand, then spread and smooth out the concrete for the court.
"It was a grind," said Herbert, who participates in a handful of O Heroes service events each year, and said the Courts for Kids experience has inspired him to do more in the future. "But fortunately, I think Coach Feld did a good job of getting us into shape beforehand. It wasn't too bad."
Five days had been set aside to complete the work. Herbert actually made the trip to Uganda with only one other staff member, having to leave Eugene a day behind the rest of the group due to a scheduled final exam. Within 10 minutes of arriving in Porogali and reuniting with the group, Harbert said, the quarterback had his gloves on and a shovel in his hands.
"It's obvious Justin doesn't want to be outworked by anyone, in any area of his life," Harbert said. "And he goes about it in a way that drives others to work just as hard."
The Ducks needed every bit of the scheduled work week to finish the project, doing so on Friday afternoon. Once the court had dried and basketball hoops were erected at each end, they grabbed a bag of balls provided by Courts for Kids and joined community members to test it out.
Herbert, who played basketball and baseball as well as football in high school, provided an immediate test of the hoops' structural integrity. The 6-foot-6 quarterback grabbed a basketball and threw down a couple of thunderous dunks, to the surprise and delight of the community members.
"Everybody looked, and I immediately apologized," he said. "It was instinct."
The trip was capped with a daylong safari excursion. Herbert was eagerly awaiting the safari, something he'd dreamed of experiencing all his life, he said.
The Ducks saw elephants and other wild animals in their natural habitat. At one point, their vans took them past a herd of antelope that, rather than grazing, was standing frozen in place, staring off into the savannah.
"About 200 yards out," Herbert recalled, "there were two males lions, walking together."
Herbert recounted the story with amazement; seeing the lions was the highlight of the safari, he said. That was obvious based on his wide eyes and awestruck tone when describing that moment.
Here was a guy who prided himself on being ready for whatever life threw at him. But for all the packing and planning Herbert did before the trip to Uganda, fulfilling a childhood dream was something for which he simply couldn't prepare.
On the football field, he proved a quick study at Oregon, two years ago becoming the first true freshman to start for the Ducks at quarterback since 1983. Herbert enters his junior season this fall already having become the fastest player in school history to reach 3,000 career passing yards.
Herbert's studious nature is an asset in the classroom as well, of course. A biology major, he was named first-team academic all-American last fall, when he recorded a 4.08 grade-point average.
Whether reading defenses or reading a textbook, Herbert thrives thanks to his preparation. And it was no different earlier this summer, when the Oregon quarterback joined 20 fellow UO student-athletes on the athletic department's annual Courts for Kids service trip, to build a sports court in a small village in northern Uganda.
This was the seventh year in a row a group of UO student-athletes participated in a Courts for Kids project, and the first that took the Ducks to Africa. The others were to Central America; Herbert's former roommate, ex-UO football player Ivan Faulhaber, participated in the 2017 project, in Nicaragua. Spurred on by Faulhaber's stories from his experience — and also wary of the hurdles that would have to be overcome — Herbert eagerly signed on for the trip to Uganda.
"I'd heard the stories of everything that could go wrong," he said. "So I was prepared — I was way over-prepared. And people gave me a hard time about that."
Some of the items Herbert packed for the trip — making him the target of some good-natured ribbing — were unnecessary: a fire-starting kit, and a water ionizer. But his preparation paid off in other ways. Thanks to Oregon football's strength and conditioning program, led by coach Aaron Feld, Herbert's body held up well despite back-breaking work shoveling and spreading concrete for the sports court, he said. And team nutritionist Taylor Hughes loaded him up with enough protein bars and other snacks that Herbert only lost about five pounds over the weeklong trip, weight he quickly put back on upon returning home.
Herbert may have left a few pounds in Uganda, but he came home with the weight of invaluable life experience. The soft-spoken Eugene native "was about as far out of my comfort zone as it gets," immersed in a foreign country with a group of fellow student-athletes he mostly knew only in passing. Though he's learned to be more emphatic in the locker room and on the field, Herbert appreciates keeping a low profile away from the game, something nobody could afford to do in order to get the most out of the cultural experience of the Courts for Kids trip.
"His size and strength were obviously an asset," said UO assistant athletic director for student-athlete development Katie Harbert, who has helped coordinate the Courts for Kids trips over the years, and who was one of four athletic department staffers in Uganda for the week. "But I think more than that were the leadership Justin showed with his intentional effort to leave his comfort zone, in order to have a transformative experience. He made a huge effort to get to know the other student-athletes and staff members, as well as the people of the community."
The UO delegation built the sports court in the northern Uganda village of Porogali, which applied to participate through Courts for Kids under the leadership of community member Ochan Moses, a former professional basketball player. That region of Central Africa still is recovering from the nearly 30-year insurgency waged by Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army, from 1987-2006; the Ducks encountered many villagers who'd been displaced by the fighting, some who had been forced to live in government camps.
"I asked one of the adults in the community what it meant that we were there building a court with them — which to us signifies a chance to play, and make friends, and learn a sport — and her response was, 'it means that peace has finally returned to our community, because Americans are living here with us,' " Harbert recalled. "I realized in that moment the extent to which the war affected their lives, and how much it was still impacting them even though it's been over for more than a decade."
Porogali has no running water and scant electricity, comforts of home the UO contingent would live without for the week. They slept on thin foam pads spread out on dusty floors, immersed among the locals — human and otherwise.
"If you didn't tuck your mosquito net in — which I did a really good job of each night — rats, mice, bats would get in there," Herbert said.
A fellow football player awoke one night to a bat inside his netting; another had a rat fall from the ceiling onto his netting. And one of the staff members, apparently not as fastidious as Herbert when it came to tucking in his mosquito net, found that a mouse had taken up residence in his pillow case.
"We'd wake up at 2, 3 in the morning, and someone would be screaming," Herbert recalled with a chuckle. "And it'd be a different person each night."
Soon after arriving in Porogali, though, they acclimated to the conditions and settled into the rhythm of the work. Lacking a machine mixer, Herbert and the Ducks had to combine and mix sand, rocks and cement by hand, then spread and smooth out the concrete for the court.
"It was a grind," said Herbert, who participates in a handful of O Heroes service events each year, and said the Courts for Kids experience has inspired him to do more in the future. "But fortunately, I think Coach Feld did a good job of getting us into shape beforehand. It wasn't too bad."
Five days had been set aside to complete the work. Herbert actually made the trip to Uganda with only one other staff member, having to leave Eugene a day behind the rest of the group due to a scheduled final exam. Within 10 minutes of arriving in Porogali and reuniting with the group, Harbert said, the quarterback had his gloves on and a shovel in his hands.
"It's obvious Justin doesn't want to be outworked by anyone, in any area of his life," Harbert said. "And he goes about it in a way that drives others to work just as hard."
The Ducks needed every bit of the scheduled work week to finish the project, doing so on Friday afternoon. Once the court had dried and basketball hoops were erected at each end, they grabbed a bag of balls provided by Courts for Kids and joined community members to test it out.
Herbert, who played basketball and baseball as well as football in high school, provided an immediate test of the hoops' structural integrity. The 6-foot-6 quarterback grabbed a basketball and threw down a couple of thunderous dunks, to the surprise and delight of the community members.
"Everybody looked, and I immediately apologized," he said. "It was instinct."
The trip was capped with a daylong safari excursion. Herbert was eagerly awaiting the safari, something he'd dreamed of experiencing all his life, he said.
The Ducks saw elephants and other wild animals in their natural habitat. At one point, their vans took them past a herd of antelope that, rather than grazing, was standing frozen in place, staring off into the savannah.
"About 200 yards out," Herbert recalled, "there were two males lions, walking together."
Herbert recounted the story with amazement; seeing the lions was the highlight of the safari, he said. That was obvious based on his wide eyes and awestruck tone when describing that moment.
Here was a guy who prided himself on being ready for whatever life threw at him. But for all the packing and planning Herbert did before the trip to Uganda, fulfilling a childhood dream was something for which he simply couldn't prepare.
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