Utah State establishes its own mission statement

Nate Needham is a freshman long snapper for the Utah State football team, but hardly your typical wide-eyed, young player.

Two years spent knocking on doors in Sao Paulo, Brazil — and having some of them slammed back in his face — while proselytizing in the city’s densely packed favella (shanty towns) have seen to that.

The experiences gained as a far-flung missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the redshirt year that followed have given Needham a mental and physical maturity that belies his freshman standing.

Nor is the soon-to-be 23-year-old alone among the Aggies who will line up against Hawaii on Saturday. He’s one of six freshmen in their 20s. Right tackle Eric Schultz is a 24-year-old sophomore and, overall, 18 Aggies have served LDS missions.

While players choose whether — and when — they will accept a mission, the numbers aren’t a coincidence, the Aggies will tell you. But they are just a start for what they have in mind. Another 19 are currently scattered around the world with plans to send out waves of more.

Third-year head coach Gary Andersen has embraced the practice of recruiting mission-bound prospects as one of his major strategic building blocks for turning around a program that has long languished as what he has termed “the third fiddle” in the Beehive State.

Truth be told, the Aggies, who come to Aloha Stadium at 2-5 (0-2 WAC), have been a very distant third chair behind Utah and Brigham Young, going without a winning season in 14 years spanning five head coaches. They’ve had one winning finish in 17 years, 6-5 in 1996.

While some coaches have disdained recruiting mission-intent players because of the disruptions and scholarships they can tie up or grudgingly accepted the practice, Andersen has made it part of his blueprint for change since applying for the job.

Of course, in a career largely spent coaching within the state of Utah, it hasn’t escaped Andersen’s notice that a strong returned missionary program is essential. For example, BYU, the flagship university of the LDS church — which UH will close the regular season with Dec. 4 — has 73 players on its 2011 roster who have served missions, according to a school spokesman. Another 43 are currently on missions.

Andersen can only dream of those kind of numbers now as he closes in on more modest initial payoffs.

“It will really start helping next year,” Andersen said. “It is a long process to get those kids back from the time you get them out of high schools as 18- or 19-year-olds and you get them back. We get our first crop of missionaries back this January. (That’s when) we’ll really start to feel the impact of that.”

Needham, who signed with the Aggies in 2007, could have graduated by now or been a fifth-year senior if he hadn’t accepted a mission. But he said he told recruiters out of high school of his plans to serve his church up front. “I told them, ‘You can keep on recruiting me if you want,’ but I’m going on a mission for two years,’ ” Needham said.

Needham, who will be 26 when he’s a senior, said he’s glad he chose to go on a mission.

And, increasingly, so are the Aggies.

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.