AFCA Release
COLLEGEVILLE, Minn. – Saint John's University junior quarterback Jackson Erdmann (Rosemount, Minn.) was named one of 22 student-athletes, across all divisions of college football, to the 2018 Allstate American Football Coaches Association (AFCA) Good Works Team on Thursday, Sept. 13.
This year marks the 27th anniversary of the award, which was established in 1992 to recognize a select group of college football players who have made a commitment to service and enriching the lives of others.
A fan vote will run from now until Nov. 23 at www.ESPN.com/Allstate to decide this year's Allstate AFCA Good Works Team Captain, who will be recognized during the national ESPN broadcast of The Home Depot ESPNU College Football Awards in December.
Erdmann is the third Johnnie to be named to the AFCA Good Works Team and the second consecutive. Senior wide receiver Will Gillach (Lindstrom, Minn./Chisago Lakes) was a member of last year’s AFCA Good Works Team and All-American defensive lineman Kevin McNamara '07 was SJU's first Good Works Team honoree in 2006.
A global business leadership major with a 3.33 GPA, Erdmann volunteered with SJU's Kids Fighting Hunger meal-packing event each of the last three years and helped the SJU football team raise money for Tackle Cancer and the "Up Till Dawn" campaign, collecting donations for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the last two seasons.
Last winter, Erdmann participated in an 18-day (Jan. 25-Feb. 11) service trip to northern Thailand, where he worked with various organizations that fight child sex trafficking. He spent a week with Courageous Love, which is an organization that rescues victims of sex trafficking or children that are a high risk of being trafficked. During the week, Erdmann and others cleared and worked on new land to build new safe houses for the children. The group also built a playground and interacted with the children, "which was a day I will never forget," Erdmann said. He intends to replicate the trip again this winter.
Erdmann spent a day with Project Justice in an impoverished, mountain village. The village's children are frequently trafficked and/or use drugs. "We spent the day playing games, brought lunch for everyone, made balloon animals, gave the kids haircuts, and sang and danced with the kids," Erdmann said. Project Justice visits the village weekly and acts as positive role models for the kids, showing them that there is more out there than doing drugs and being trafficked.
The group ended the service trip by spending five days with The Little Farm Thailand. Tasks included building fences and a goat house, gardening and chopping wood.
Erdmann spent 2017's spring break working at the Breaking Free House in the Twin Cities, which is a safe place for victims of sex trafficking and prostitution to recover from their experiences.
Closer to home, Erdmann ran a church youth group last summer and served as a residential assistant in a freshman dormitory during the 2017-18 academic year.
He volunteered weekly at the Dream Center in St. Cloud during 2016's spring semester, serving meals and interacting with the men in the house. The Dream Center provides services for men, ages 18 and older, that need care, are struggling with mental health issues, chemical dependency issues, traumatic brain injury, learning disabilities and/or physical disabilities.
Another aspect of the student-athlete the Good Works Team recognizes is overcoming adversity, something that Erdmann unfortunately knows well. In high school, Erdmann was diagnosed with acute cerebellar ataxia - a condition that disrupts balance, coordination and muscle movement - after coming down with mononucleosis following his junior season. He was able to attend only five days of school in January and could not sit in a chair, stand or walk without falling. He had daily physical therapy for the remainder of the school year (February through May). Erdmann broke his fibula on the third play of the Class 6A quarterfinal game as a senior but bounced back to walk on at Division I Penn State in 2015, where he was redshirted. He suffered a second bout with acute cerebellar ataxia following a concussion suffered four games into his freshman season at SJU in 2016 and returned four weeks later.
Erdmann completed 14 of 22 passes for 241 yards and four touchdowns in three quarters of play two weeks ago in SJU's season-opening 27-0 win over Wisconsin-Stout. He tied for first in the MIAC with 19 passing touchdowns in conference play, while finishing second in completion percentage (.618, 105-for-170), pass-efficiency rating (169.1) and yards per pass attempt (9.0) en route to All-MIAC first-team honors last fall. Erdmann ended the season with 1,859 passing yards, 25 passing touchdowns and a .617 completion percentage (129-for-209) overall. His 172.1 pass-efficiency rating was the third-best in school history, and good for ninth among all Division III quarterbacks, and the touchdown-to-interception ratio (25 to 4) of 6.25 was fourth.
He is currently sixth in school history with 49 career passing touchdowns, 12th in pass completions (231) and 13th in passing yards (3,390). Erdmann has a career .613 completion percentage and 173.9 pass-efficiency rating (49 touchdowns to 11 interceptions in 377 pass attempts).
The 2018 Allstate AFCA Good Works Team will be invited to New Orleans to participate in a special community service project ahead of the 2019 Allstate Sugar Bowl, where the entire team will also be recognized on the field at halftime on New Year’s Day.
Earlier this season, sports information directors from Division I, Division II, Division III and NAIA schools across the country submitted nominations of players they felt best embodied the spirit of the Good Works Team award. A voting panel was faced with a list of 169 nominees that was narrowed down to the 22 student-athletes and an honorary coach named to the team.
No. 11 SJU (1-0 overall) returns to action with a road trip to Gustavus Adolphus (1-1 overall) for the MIAC opener this Saturday, Sept. 15. The 85th meeting between the two programs is set for a 1 p.m. kickoff in St. Peter.
