NORMAN — On a hot mid-June day, OU wide receiver Nic Anderson made the rounds at the youth camp he was working at Norman North High School.

Anderson walked among the position groups, offering praise, tips and plenty of fist bumps and high fives.

“I love giving back to the community and especially back to kids,” Anderson said. “Seeing them out here working like I was a few years ago brings back a little nostalgia.

“I like being out here working, especially when it’s football.”

Anderson’s summer has included plenty of football, but also plenty away from the sport as well.

Perhaps the biggest was his mission trip to South Africa.

“That was amazing,” Anderson said. “Definitely a trip that I’ll remember for the rest of my life.”

Anderson and the other OU athletes who made the trip as part of the SOUL Mission, split their time between Cape Town and Johannesburg.

During their time in Cape Town, the group visited several monuments to apartheid.

“It was eye-opening, definitely seeing some of the areas that were affected by all the injustices that were happening there and some of the families that were still feeling the effects,” Anderson said. “It just made you realize how grateful we are to live in a country like this.”

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Anderson and the rest of the group also spent time visiting orphanages and interacting with the children.

“I spoke to my teammates about this — we just have a different sense of gratitude and a different sense of appreciation for what we have here and what we have in our lives,” Anderson said. “We’re really blessed and we were just grateful that we got to give back to them in that little way that we could.”

One of the children in particular affected Anderson more than the rest.

“He was real quiet but for some reason opened up to me and Kaden (Helms, Anderson’s roommate and an OU tight end)," Anderson said. "We had a good time speaking with him and having fun. We made s’mores one night and just had a really good time with him and their family.”

Anderson’s summer has also included some time recording his Red Dirt Rambles podcast with Helms that also features several of their Sooners’ teammates.

“We’re just having a great time making episodes with our teammates and I think that’s one of the best parts about it is being able to connect and talk with our teammates on a different level and just share our conversations with the whole world,” Anderson said.

“Sometimes you don’t get to talk to a lot of players like the specialists or the O-line, so just giving them that platform so they can spit their piece and really tell the fans what they go through on a day-to-day basis.”

The podcast starts through one of Helms’ former coaches, who asked if Helms wanted to be involved.

“Kaden didn’t want to do it alone so he asked me to help because I was his roommate at the time,” Anderson said.

They filmed their first episodes in Headington Hall, where the pair lived at the time. Now, they film in the trophy room at Gaylord Family — Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

Anderson and Helms met before they arrived at OU, Anderson from Katy, Texas, and Helms from Bellevue, Nebraska.

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“That’s my dog,” Anderson said of Helms. “We’re ride-or-dies. … Our first conversation was, ‘You want to be my roommate, he was like, ‘Yeah,’ and that was it. Our relationship has just taken off from there. I’ve been with him every day for the past three years.”

Anderson also recently continued a family tradition, pledging to the Omega Psi Phi fraternity.

“It goes back a long time,” Anderson said. “My grandfather was the first to pledge, I think it was in the ’60s, then my dad, my uncle and both of my brothers. It’s only right that I followed suit but it’s something that I also wanted to do for myself because at the end of the day, they left it up to me to make the choice if I wanted to join or not.

“I did my research and looked at all the pros and cons and decided to follow in their footsteps.”

Anderson’s left bicep shows one of the biggest pieces of the process, where his recent branding — a Omega Psi Phi tradition — is healing.

“We do it to show off the pride we have for our fraternity,” Anderson said. “It’s painful.”

But Anderson said he wouldn’t change anything about it.

One of Anderson’s older brothers, former OU running back Rodney Anderson, has had an up-close view into Nic’s growth as a player and a person.

“I’ve always described it as full-circle moments for me,” Rodney Anderson said. “Seeing him put on a uniform — full-circle moment, scoring touchdowns, contributing to the team, putting on camps, pledging our fraternity, all full-circle moments. I’m tremendously proud of him. He’s getting everything he deserves because he works for it.”

The brothers are seven years apart, with Rodney leaving Katy for Norman when Nic was still fairly young.

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“For him to come here and to have the opportunity to come back, it’s helped our relationship grow past what it already was and made us even closer,” said Rodney Anderson, who now works for Sooner Sports Properties. “I love watching him, I love being a part of it with him.”

So Nic Anderson has been plenty busy since his 38-catch, 798-yard, 10-touchdown redshirt freshman season wrapped up.

“That season was a blur,” he said. “Time moves so fast. You wish you could live those moments again but you can’t, so I’m just trying to look to the future.”

Anderson burst on the scene against Tulsa last season with three catches — all for touchdowns — for 120 yards.

Then the biggest moment of his season came in the closing moments against Texas, when he hauled in a 3-yard touchdown pass from Dillon Gabriel to give the Sooners the win.

“The biggest moment that you can possibly think of for a college athlete outside of a national championship,” Rodney said. “We’re talking Cotton Bowl, you’re playing for OU, you’re going against Texas, fans are in the stands just cursing you out, and you’re just watching that ball come in in front of all those people, that’s the moment that he’s been working for since he was a kid.

“To see him do that, tremendously proud.”

Nic Anderson might never get a chance to make a play like that again — few players ever do get one such opportunity, much less multiple.

But he plans on being ready should another such opportunity arise.

Anderson dealt with injuries in the spring, missing the Sooners’ spring game, but says he’s back to 100%.

“I feel like I’ve just got to focus on the little things — whether it be the extra hours in the training room getting my body right or the extra hour with Schmidty (Jerry Schmidt) getting my strength good,” Nic said. “I always can get faster, stronger, more disciplined, so I feel like everything we’re doing with the strength staff and the training staff this offseason is going to be crucial.”

This article originally appeared on Oklahoman: OU football: How Sooners' WR Nic Anderson is spending his summer