Herman Ayers is a lot more than a very efficient, proactive and teamwork-oriented custodian and humble family man.

He’s also a low-key ambassador of aloha to students, faculty and staff at the University of Hawaii, where he works during the week at the Hawaii Institute of Geophysics on upper campus. Those attributes — and the initiative he took keeping campus safe during the pandemic — earned him a UH Presidential Award for Outstanding Service in 2022.

Another thing about Ayers: If there’s some invisible wall between upper and lower campus at UH, between academics and athletics, he’s never bumped into it.

Ayers contributed to the teamwork needed for UH to pull off the unprecedented last week. Lower campus hosted 22 intercollegiate sports events in an eight-day span. Ayers was among 10 upper campus custodians called upon to help on their days off.

“Usually it’s just three or four of us (for UH football games). Lower campus has their own workers too,” he said. “And the Sheriff Center has its own.”

Ayers is among those who marvel at the job the staff at the Stanley did last week (and does on a regular basis, when the court has to be changed quickly for volleyball from basketball and vice versa, sometimes several times a week).

Thanksgiving time was originally scheduled to be a fairly routine holiday week-plus-one-day. Then nine games became 21 with the addition of the Allstate Maui Invitational, featuring several of the best college basketball teams in the nation. The 40th annual tourney needed a temporary home because of the wildfires that decimated Lahaina in August.

Even before that, hosting the state high school’s Open Division football championship on Friday was in the works, and those arrangements were finalized a couple of weeks before the game.

Ayers worked both football games after his regular day shift at HIG. He also returned at 5 a.m. Sunday for clean-up after working the Warriors game from 2 to 10:30 p.m. Saturday.

He was among dozens of UH employees from both sides of Dole Street who adjusted their schedules so the school could handle the added events.

Not everything was perfect (read: parking situation). But the athletic department and the university took on a challenge and, for the most part, succeeded.

“(UH athletic director Craig Angelos) was very supportive of hosting the high school game,” said Keith Amemiya, chair of Gov. Josh Green’s new sports task force. “I commend the University of Hawaii for doing a great job of overseeing so many different sports events last week.”

That includes the prep football game, which thousands of fans who attended could not have seen in person if it were played at a school field with less capacity, like last year.

It was held at UH’s Ching Complex this year “despite the many naysayers who didn’t think it would work,” Amemiya said. “We owe it to the schools and the student-athletes and their supporters to have the game at the best facility available.”

He’s 100% correct — especially when that facility is owned by the state.

Bobby Webster’s homecoming nearly got lost in the shuffle last week. The Toronto Raptors general manager from Kailua and ‘Iolani was here to check out the college hoops talent but also made time for a reception organized by Amemiya and the Downtown Athletic Club of Hawaii. It netted $30,000 for the Luna Strong fund that helps Lahainaluna High School’s student-athletes and coaches recover from the fires that destroyed most of their homes — and athletic gear.

Like Amemiya, Angelos gets it about servant leadership.

“How could we say no, to either one of them?”

Angelos then answered his own rhetorical question.

“Of course we had to do it. It’s for Maui, and it’s for the high schools,” he said on the sidelines of the HHSAA game Friday night.

The upper campus custodian agrees with the lower campus director.

“You can tell them that, us here, on our level, we enjoy it,” Ayers said. “We got that nice field, and it’s empty. We should put it to use, right? It’d be nice if they can hold all the playoffs there. We love coming down there, we enjoy it actually, even though it’s long hours.”