Nickel: Oren Burks wants to contribute to the Packers. He's also dedicated to making the world a better place.
GREEN BAY – Oren Burks has studied firsthand the vanishing coral reef in Australia, helped young peers come up with business solutions to urban problems in Nashville, created a support group for black students at Vanderbilt University and joined a new organization with the Green Bay Packers devoted to Wisconsin community causes.
With a degree in human organizational development, an interest in social justice and a heart for our youth, the 24-year-old Burks will no doubt continue to try make the world a better place.
But right now he has been working to help the Packers.
And that’s been tough lately.
Burks’ playing time has been sparse since returning in October from a pectoral muscle injury he suffered in training camp. He has mostly been playing on all four special teams units. In six games, Burks has posted seven tackles on defense but has been one of Green Bay's tackling leaders on special teams.
While it was a relief for Burks that his pectoral injury didn’t end his season in August, it has still cost him playing time.
This was not the plan for 2019.
After his off-season training sessions with the Packers, Burks was feeling confident, playing aggressively and fast. A third-round draft pick in 2018, he was poised for a more prominent role than his special teams duties a year ago.
But even though Burks missed all the September games, he feels he is playing at his strongest right now.
“I’m still not going to have that full strength probably until the off-season, but I’m doing what I can,” Burks said recently. “I can definitely play with it; I have some pop back with my strike and things like that.
“I was kind of limited at first, but now I feel like I can play as many snaps as I need to, or as they feel is necessary. I don’t think the strength is a problem. It’s kind of weird, I may not be able to bench as much as I used to, but ... with our play style, you don’t really notice as much.
“I’m able to fully function the way I need to.”
So Burks continues to work toward his football goal. And it seems as if Packers fans are lucky to have him, for more than football.
While in college a couple of years ago, and at the encouragement of Vanderbilt’s former athletic director, the legendary David Williams, Burks did a “Maymester” in Australia, where he studied biodiversity and the ecosystem. Burks traveled to the Great Barrier Reef and saw the contrast between the vibrant life there and the corals that are dying.
“You just don’t know if our grandkids are going to be able to see that,” Burks said. “The drastic difference was amazing. It was all no color, it almost looked like a graveyard. It’s crazy.”
Burks wrote essays and reports from his findings and chose to focus on the cassowary, an endangered species of bird, for his presentation at the conclusion of the five-week program.
While at Vanderbilt, Burks also was the Student Advisory Council president, so he got to know Williams very well and found the personable AD, who died recently, very influential.
“Our athletic director, David Williams, was really big on pushing athletes to do that Maymester,” Burks said. “So we could travel abroad and see the world. He widened our spectrum of what we thought was possible.”
Burks took Williams' encouragement to heart. He did a summer internship with the Turner Family Center for Social Ventures at the university.
When the founding director, Mario Avila, met Burks, "He was wearing that sharp blue suit, he was captain of the football team, big man on campus. He was 10 minutes early," Avila said. “That shows respect.”
Avila, a Chicago native and former football player at Dartmouth, pushed Burks to think about his personal goals beyond the competitive college sports arena and the demanding academic scene at Vanderbilt.
"Instead of starting another foundation, push for change," Avila said. "I told him, 'I know your goal is to play in the NFL. You have an amazing platform, what are you going to do with it?'
“He’s really passionate about youth and supporting youth in our communities."
Through the Turner Family Center for Social Ventures, 85 student-athletes met regularly with Burks and community leaders and discussed their own real-world solutions to the problems they saw in their neighborhoods, mostly poor white, black, Hispanic and immigrant communities.
“The best thing to do for someone living in poverty is to give them a job, a steady paycheck with an honest living,” Avila said.
Among the solutions student-athletes came up with was a car-sharing network and employing neighborhood residents to clean up the abundant construction waste in Nashville's ever-growing developmental areas.
Avila said Burks' leadership qualities were evident right away, but it is his empathetic nature that made him unique. Avila called Burks "a servant leader."
"It's always, 'How can I help you?' ” Avila said.
Burks has a passion for social justice and minority issues as well. He and seven other students created a social and support group named REVAMP, which stands for Revitalizing & Empowering Vanderbilt’s African-American male population. That group helped support Vandy's black male students on everything from how to get help with class to where to get a haircut.
“There wasn’t a lot of community within the black, male population” at Vanderbilt, said Burks. “There were a lot of different pockets: student-athletes over here, engineering students over there. We wanted to create a space where we could get to know each other on a deeper level, and network.
"Especially for the freshmen coming in, it’s a tough transition. It’s cool to have people that look like you and have the same experiences who can help you out.”
Burks himself was thrust into situations in college where he had to adapt and be aware. After being recruited by coach James Franklin (who spent a year in Green Bay as a wide receivers coach), Burks saw the Vanderbilt program rocked by scandal when former teammates were convicted of rape. Burks was not involved but endured the fallout of coaching changes when Franklin left.
Burks decided to become a part of another support group at Vanderbilt for victims of sexual harassment and encouraged students to intervene on a victim's behalf or speak up against sexual and domestic violence on campus as an education volunteer for Project Safe.
Burks was named "Mr. Commodore" after starring on the football field and also being a campus leader. He was a finalist for the Coach Wooden Citizenship Cup Award and named to the Allstate American Football Coaches Association Good Works Team.
Now in Green Bay, Burks has sought out community enhancement opportunities again. He has joined about a dozen other teammates on what he called a new "Social Justice" panel, a group that has decided to work with the Sherman Phoenix business and community hub in Milwaukee by donating $50,000 – on behalf of Packers – to the STEM program.
Burks – who, shortly after being drafted, chose his jersey number, 42, in honor of Jackie Robinson – has spent all his young adult life looking for opportunities to make the world a better place.
And now that includes football. The injury this season was challenging, especially since he began his rookie season with an injury, too. He has tried his best to persevere when everyone else is asking about his status.
“That was the hardest, the uncertainty, early on,” said Burks. "The middle ground, where you don’t exactly know where you stand.
“You are in an hour and a half before everybody else with the rehab. And then just being away from the team when they travel. There were definitely some dark days, especially early."
Burks said the coaches have asked him to work toward the way he was playing in organized team activities, and that's been the goal since he came back. Burks would like to help this 8-2 Packers team any way he can.
“I was really building on the type of player I know I can be, playing fast, aggressive,” said Burks. “I guess just getting back to that is what they’re looking for. And being confident.”
Message Lori Nickel on Twitter at @LoriNickel, Instagram at @bylorinickel or Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ChinUpLoriNickel