From time to time, Mario Herring gets caught up reflecting on life and basketball.
For starters, he can’t believe he’s here, playing in the Class 3A state boys basketball tournament. The Evergreen Plainsmen (20-4) face 3A power Rainier Beach (17-9) at 12:15 p.m. Wednesday in their round-of-12 game. It’s the program’s first appearance at the Tacoma Dome since 2006.
But Herring also can’t believe he’s here, playing at Evergreen. That’s because he almost didn’t and doesn’t want to think where he’d be if he weren’t.
“I honestly don’t know,” said Herring, clutching a basketball for an entire 40-minute sit-down interview. “I wouldn’t be here, probably.”
For Herring, Evergreen’s 6-foot-6 senior, basketball is a joy and an escape from an upbringing surrounded by gang-related activity and violence. He’s named after a late-uncle, who was fatally shot in a gang-related affair in 1997.
In 2014, he lost his pregnant sister in what police called a gang-related shooting. And just last week, Herring sat and watched his father be sentenced in Multnomah County court to 11 years in prison for attempted murder.
Emotionally charged times motivate Herring, the 3A Greater St. Helens League’s most valuable player this season, to be a better man, a family role model, and find a successful path through basketball.
He’s found it at Evergreen.
“It’s been nothing but good to me,” Herring said. “It’s the best thing that’s ever happened.”
Coming to Evergreen
Herring didn’t know much about Evergreen — or even Vancouver, for that matter — before moving across the Columbia River from Northeast Portland with his mother, stepfather, younger brother and nephew.
Evergreen is Herring’s third high school, and Clark County is a change for the better, he said.
While Herring has engulfed himself in basketball at an early age, gang-related associates and activity have impacted him and his family.
In August of 2014, his sister Ervaeua Herring, was shot more than two dozen times from at least six guns at her Portland apartment, according to police and media reports. She was 21, not a gang member, and in early stages of pregnancy. Six men were arrested in connection to her death. One was sentenced to second-degree manslaughter last October.
Mario’s mother, Aleasha, lost a daughter, and Herring, then 13, lost more than a sister, whom he saw just hours before her death.
“She was like my best friend,” he said.
Herring said he chooses to stay away from gang activity, adding, “I’ve never been a part of it, but it’s always been there around me.”
He said his mother uprooted the family to Vancouver for Herring’s junior year of high school for a fresh start and new beginnings. With them is Herring’s nephew, Ervaeua’s son DeAndre, who was 1 year old when his mother was killed. He’s 6 now, and his uncle’s biggest fan.
He’s why Herring knows he needs to step up.
“I have to grow up and be a man for my nephew,” Herring said, “and show him a better path, and be a big role model.”
That’s in basketball, too.
Chats with his father
Evergreen assistant coach Paul Porter thinks it’s no coincidence Herring plays his best games on days the teen speaks with his father, Ervan Herring, Sr. via telephone.
“Every time he talks to him,” said Porter, in his eighth season at Evergreen, “he dominates.”
Last spring, the Ervan Herring, Sr., was found guilty of attempted murder and other charges from a February 2018 shooting outside Portland’s Legacy Emanuel Medical Center. According to a Multnomah County district attorney’s office news release, Ervan Herring, Sr., and brother, Michael Herring, spotted the man convicted of the 1997 killing of their brother, Mario Herring’s uncle. Ervan Herring, Sr., opened fire in the hospital’s parking lot.
The father was sentenced last Wednesday to nearly 11 years in prison. Mario Herring accompanied his mother and other family members for sentencing but wasn’t prepared for the day’s emotional toll.
“It was hard,” the teenager said. “I didn’t understand until the sentencing.”
Mario Herring said his father’s influence in basketball is huge, and Herring without basketball is almost unthinkable.
Blossoming into leader
Athleticism comes naturally for the tall, long-armed left hander. And for 32 minutes, Herring is locked in.
“I wanted to make it far this season,” he said. “This year felt like a good year for me, and it has been a good year.”
It almost wasn’t, though, because Herring had to be persuaded to turn out for basketball last season — his first at Evergreen. The growth and maturation third-year coach Brett Henry has watched in Herring’s two years of varsity basketball is no surprise. A quiet, keep-to-himself kid has blossomed into a leader, the league’s MVP, and a league champion.
Henry calls Herring and Evergreen a “perfect marriage” because a blend of resources in academics and basketball has Herring’s future in focus.
“We’re here to set up a kid like him,” Henry said.
Evergreen won its first league title in seven seasons behind Herring’s double-double average and a experienced cast that includes leading scorer Jaden Stanley, UNLV football signee Zyell Griffin and three-sport standout Carter Monda.
A victory Wednesday gives Evergreen its first state tournament win since placing third in Class 4A in 1999.
Herring is ready, and Porter, Evergreen’s assistant, easily draws comparisons of Herring’s talent to one ex-Evergreen star who never played at state, but had a big post-high school career.
It’s Robert Franks, a former Washington State standout now playing for the Stockton Kings of the NBA G League.
“The way this kid plays,” Porter said, “the way he passes, it’s like no other. (Franks) is like no other. … Those two are right there, and (Herring) has a chance to go really far.”
