UW Football | Mercier mixes music with charity

In the happy aftermath of Saturday's 29-19 win over UCLA, it was convenient to label the victory as a defining moment for the type of program coach Tyrone Willingham is trying to build at Washington.

But Willingham thought what happened Sunday morning, away from any television cameras and screaming crowds, might have lent just as much definition.

Roughly 15 hours after they had helped finish off UCLA, Huskies Alex Mercier, Chris Hemphill and Marlon Wood spent about an hour in a Ballard photo studio hanging out with Ellie Jo Nowicki.

Ellie Jo, who turns 2 in December, is battling to overcome a stroke suffered when she was 3 days old. She was there to be photographed by Lynette Johnson, who organizes free photo shoots of ill children and their families for a project she calls Soulumination.

The players were there as part of their own project to help fund Soulumination — a CD titled "Husky Nation" that was produced by Mercier as part of his senior-class project to finish a degree in music management. All proceeds from the CD, which costs $6.95 and is available online and at Husky Stadium, go to Soulumination.

"These are very thoughtful young men, and their focus is not themselves," Willingham said. "And that is what I think is the hallmark of our program, that it is not a program about self, but about team, about we, about us."

At the heart of the project is Mercier, a walk-on receiver from Bishop Blanchet High School.

His two passions, he says, are football and music. He has been cutting records since high school, and plays guitar and piano and signs and writes songs.

Mercier found a way to combine those twin callings last spring when he and former teammate J.R. Wolfork, a walk-on who was on last season's team, cut a single called "Husky Nation" that also included contributions from Hemphill, Wood, Quintin Daniels and former receiver Charles Smith.

Over the summer, that single morphed into an entire album of songs all related to Huskies football, with titles such as "Victory Lap," "I'm A Husky" and "All Dawgs go to Heaven."

NCAA rules, however, prohibit players or schools from being able to profit from such albums, so Mercier sought a charity. He remembered Johnson, whom he has known for about 10 years. Mercier and Johnson's daughters attended Bishop Blanchet together.

Johnson, a professional photographer for 18 years, formed Soulumination about five years ago. She began shooting portraits of families with terminally ill children about 11 years ago after some people close to her had lost babies. At first, she shot just a couple of families a year. But as word got out, there were more and more requests, and she formed Soulumination to fund her work. She donates all portraits to the families and has also become a national spokeswoman and counselor on the topic of seriously ill children. Some of her photos were on display last spring at the Children's National Medical Center in Washington, D.C.

"The more you read about it, the more you look at it, the more you appreciate what she is doing," Mercier said.

Mercier and Wolfork are credited with all the writing and producing of the music, which is a blend of pop and hip-hop.

As the project unfolded, Mercier approached players on the team he thought would have an interest.

"I like music, and he knows that and he came to me and asked me and we made it happen," said Hemphill, a backup safety.

Mercier handled most of the logistical work, namely making sure the project didn't run afoul of NCAA rules and that it passed muster with Willingham. Mercier said he had to make at least 60 edits before the CD was finished.

Willingham, though, says there were few issues on his end.

"I think they knew going in what the expectations would be," Willingham said. "I think it's good and it has the ability to be very popular and very current. It has some wonderful themes that are contained within this program."

It has sold less than 1,000 copies so far, Mercier said, though he's hoping the team's resurgence will help sales.

But the players didn't just cut a record and run. Instead, many of them have stayed involved in the project, attending Soulumination photo shoots whenever possible.

At one point Sunday, the 6-foot-6 Hemphill carried Ellie Jo around on his shoulders with Johnson snapping photos of it all for posterity.

"It was just awesome seeing the biggest guy there, how gentle and great he was with the kids," said John Nowicki, Ellie Jo's father, who calls himself an avid Huskies fan. "Sometimes it can be a little more difficult being around kids with special needs, but they did great."

Said Johnson: "It's such a great combination of these powerful men with these children who are really fighting things that may shorten their lives. It's such an amazingly beautiful pairing photographically."

The project has given Mercier a certain level of fame unexpected for a walk-on receiver — one wire-service story on the CD ended up on the front page of ESPN's Web site one day.

Asked about the attention, Mercier calls it " bittersweet," since his season has to date been a bust because a lingering hamstring injury that has kept him off the field. A senior, he has just eight regular-season games left.

But then he thinks about those kids, and any sense of feeling sorry for himself evaporates as quickly as it descended.

Johnson remembers one day handing Mercier then-and-now photos of a child who suddenly ran into developmental difficulties.

"I said, 'Let me show you this new child,' " Johnson said. "And there is Alex looking at the photos and standing there with tears in his eyes. I was like, 'Are you kidding me? This 22-year-old gets it.' "

Bob Condotta: 206-515-5699 or bcondotta@seattletimes.com