When confronted with tough, seemingly impossible challenges, Brandon Hersh has the attitude that he will ‘figure it out’.

Join the high school band without having ever played a musical instrument? I’ll figure it out!

Walk on to a Division I football team without having played the sport? I’ll figure it out!

The senior defensive back at Duke University is now ready to work to figure out how he can help spark the #ClimateComeback by being part of the EcoAthletes Champions network.

“The world has made some important climate progress,” declared Hersh. “But we are not moving nearly fast enough and global carbon emissions continue to rise. I am excited to work with my fellow EcoAthletes Champions to use our platforms to lead climate action!”

The Essex County, New Jersey native’s problem-solving ethos was passed down to him by his parents.

“Both of my parents are Duke grads, and both have incredible work ethics that were modeled for me from as far back as I can remember,” he remembered. “My father Jeff, who was a pro tennis player, is one of the most mentally tough people I’ve ever known. He also urged me and my older siblings to play team instead of individual sports, since he was on his own so much with tennis and did not want that same isolation for us.”

Baseball was Hersh’s first love; he learned the game in a way that very few kids could: “My family was a part of the ownership group of the now defunct independent league Newark Bears franchise. I got to see baseball at a high level, up close and personal, from when I was a young kid. We went to spring training with the team. How cool is THAT?!”

Hersh combined that love, work ethic and drive to become a star outfielder and pitcher through his time at Seton Hall Prep high school. But, when he didn’t receive the right opportunity to continue his baseball career, he had another thing to figure out: Should he accept an offer somewhere else or apply to Duke as a non-athlete. 

This did not faze him. Remember, this is the same guy who joined the concert band without ever having played an instrument.

“I randomly decided that I wanted to play sax,” he recalled with a laugh. “I was the only person in the band who’d never played an instrument and, not surprisingly, I was terrible at it for quite a while. But I worked at it and worked at it and eventually became pretty good.”

Hersh’s work ethic and his figure-it-out ethos came in handy once he made his decision to go to Duke.

“When I started my freshman year, I accepted that my run in baseball was over,” he admitted. “That said, I felt like I needed to do something in sports. I thought about helping out with the basketball team — I had played in high school. Then my older sister Morgan, who was also at Duke and was a student manager in football operations, told me they were looking for an equipment manager. I jumped at it — I love football, I got paid and I got to be a part of a team. It was great!”

Assigned to assist the quarterbacks and wide receivers, he did whatever was needed, from putting down cones to catching punts. Unbeknownst to Hersh, his ability to snag every punt cleanly caught the eye of one of the coaches.

“The special teams coach asked my sister if I’d be interested in giving football a try,” he shared. “I told her ‘I’d love to,’ thinking that he was kidding! Well, he was serious. So, I had to get to work. I trained for football for the first time in my life over the holiday break, intentionally putting on weight. Then the team’s head of operations called me and said that ‘this would be unlike anything you’ve ever done, there’s a real physical risk and there are no guarantees. What do you think?’ I said YES without hesitation!”

When Hersh showed up at spring camp, the coaching staff assigned him to the wide receiver room after having first given him the impression that he’d be on the defensive side of the ball.

This was going to be a tough one to, well, figure out.

“I have to admit…I was terrified,” he acknowledged sheepishly. “I had never practiced that position. At our first practice, Jake Bobo, who currently plays in the NFL with the Seattle Seahawks, looked at me in disbelief and said ‘are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna run some routes?’ After a few mangled attempts at running basic routes, the guys were cracking up. As silly as it may sound, I thought back to my first few days in the band and I immediately relaxed. Just like band, I was terrible at first — no doubt about it, I was the worst receiver on the team — and then I started to figure it out. Every little bit of progress in practice, every victory was a small step forward. 

Two weeks after his first spring game, an early moment of truth beckoned. Head coach David Cutcliffe, best known for being the quarterback guru who helped develop Peyton Manning while an assistant at Tennessee, and brother Eli while in the same role at Mississippi, called Hersh into his office.

“I was so nervous going into Coach Cutcliffe’s office,” he remembered. “I feared that he was going to cut me. Instead, he said, ‘You’re great with the guys, you’re a hard worker. We’d love to have you as part of the best culture in college football.’ That gave me the confidence I needed.”

Yet, after his sophomore year — his first season on the team — Hersh faced another challenge as Coach Cutcliffe, the guy who believed in him, was fired and replaced by Mike Elko from Texas A&M. He had to prove himself all over again, with a new staff to impress and a new scheme to figure out.

“I was terrified Coach Elko would let me go — I had absolutely no history with him. But he told me, ‘You’re no longer a walk-on; you’re a football player!’ I was beyond thrilled.”

But there was one catch: after the spring semester, Elko shifted Hersh to cornerback. It was another challenge. And by now, you know how he handled it: Struggle at first, work hard, figure it out.

“I have the right body type for corner,” asserted Hersh. “And I knew the wide receivers’ tricks, having been part of that group for two years. Plus, Coach Elko is a defensive guru and his scheme, with its NFL-like complexities, is incredible. I mostly play on the scout team in practice, helping the starting QB get a sense of what that weekend’s opponent likes to do. And I played a ton in this year’s spring game due to injuries, making a tackle and snagging my first interception during practice. That felt like a culmination after all those earlier struggles, and the team had a great season. We went 9-4. The hard work was paying off.”

Hersh realizes that the #ClimateComeback is going to require hard work and he’s already started figuring out how best to use his platform to drive sustainability at Duke Athletics. His interest in the environment goes back to childhood.

“My brother Zack, who is four years older than I and played baseball at Duke, is my hero,” he offered. “I did whatever he did; Zack was an avid fisherman when we were kids and so I became an avid fisherman to spend time with him. He taught me everything about it, including a love for the ocean. Then I took an environmental science class in high school and loved it. When I applied to Duke, my essay focused in part on the environmental science program at the school.”

While Hersh ultimately decided to major in psychology, his drive to make a difference on climate was rekindled by a fellow EcoAthletes Champion.

“Alayna Burns, a senior leader on the Duke field hockey team, sparked my interest in climate action again,” he appreciated. “We are going work together along with the Duke Sustainable Athletics Group to help “green” Duke Athletics this year. It is an important effort, one which I am excited to figure out. My status as an EcoAthletes Champion will certainly help. I can’t WAIT to get started.”

EcoAthletes co-founder and CEO Lew Blaustein is ready to get rolling.

“Brandon, as our first active college football player, can have a huge impact in spreading the need for climate action at Duke Athletics and beyond,” Blaustein noted. “And I know that with Brandon on our team, even if we start slowly, we will start to figure out how to make progress on the #ClimateComeback.”

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