The United Heroes League had a busy week last week like they do each year around Veterans Day. Periodically, professional athletes will take time to volunteer at UHL to spend time with military families. Last week, members of the Minnesota Vikings, defensive lineman Harrison Phillips and offensive Lineman Kyle Hinton paid a visit to the UHL campus.

“I have some history in my family and my fiancé’s family with the military and I think military appreciation is super cool. Salute to Service one of my favorite things that the NFL does. Through my foundation, we always try to find ways to give back to our local veterans. This is a really cool opportunity to come out here and hang out and play some of the families today,” Phillips said.

“Both my parents served, my dad did 20 years in the Army and then my mom did about five years in the Army,” added Hinton. “Pretty much all I know, is football in the military, so I know the importance of supporting military families, as well as the direct service member. It was very important for me to get out here and support the kids like that because I was in their shoes as well. I’m so glad to be out here.”

The event started with a small meet-andgreet inside the UHL office and then it moved to the Heroes Monument. Both Hinton and Phillips were impressed with not only the monument, but the names that were already in place on the monument. The look of reflection on the adult’s face, including the two Vikings players, was impactful for many of the kids that may not understand what they are looking at.

“t's really cool and to see the Vikings logo on the memorial over there,” said Phillips. “It's been a privilege to be a part of this organization and what the Wilf's do to give back, the foundation that they have, and the community service project that they do encourages me to want to do more and give back more.”

After the group toured the monument, they moved to the Heroes Course. The Heroes Course is a certified military confidence and testing course that is used by active military members and units for training purposes. There are 18 different confidence course stations to test physical and mental strength as team cohesion. During the tour, you could see the competitive nature of the two players bursting to get out and get them on the course. They could not participate due to being in season and not wanting to risk injury, but it was clear they were anxiously wanting to give it a go.

Hinton laughed as he explained his desire to come back to the course. “I definitely want to come back because as I saw the demonstrations, all my competitive juices came out and no, I couldn't do it now. But definitely in the offseason. I'll definitely come back out here and then definitely try my hand some more archery as well. I really enjoyed that.”

The whole time through the course, Phillips and Hinton were joking with each other about who could do what station better and wanting to get out on the course.

The final stop was the archery range. The players took instruction from the ranger pros and then shot. Phillips has his own custom bow, but Hinton had never shot before. Hist first shot created quite the funny facial expression.

Overall, the kids, families, UHL staff, media and the Vikings group had a great time making a few families feed special at UHL.