AUSTIN, Texas — It was a relatively benign question to Texas coach Tom Herman on a teleconference about how his perspective might’ve changed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The next thing Herman knew, he was again face-to-face with the helplessness he felt as his dad, homeless in Cincinnati, finished drinking himself to death at the age of 52.

“It was very hard for me to see him so helpless. But also so self-destructive,” Herman told Horns247.com.

Herman has said the reason he hugs and sometimes kisses players on the cheek before games is because he didn't receive that kind of fatherly love and believes young men should experience that.

The emotions came flooding back as Herman and his wife, Michelle, selected various organizations to receive their charitable contributions in light of the pandemic.

The Hermans chose to make $10,000 contributions each to the Central Texas Food Bank, Safe Alliance (opposing domestic violence), Meals on Wheels, Boys and Girls Club of Austin and Front Steps (providing assistance to homeless). The Hermans have also pledged money to the UT Student Emergency Fund.

"All of these organizations were very important to me and Michelle," Herman told Horns247. "From my experience trying to help a homeless father, to Michelle and I having loved ones be victims of domestic abuse, to the fact that I went to the Boys and Girls Club growing up - we wanted these organizations to know how impactful they are to the Herman family history."

Herman, an only child, was raised by his mother, Rita, in California after they moved out from Herman’s father, Thomas Joseph Herman Jr., in Cincinnati - when Tom was 6 years old.

The rest of Herman’s relationship with his father involved flashes of time. There were trips back to Cincinnati to see him when Herman was in elementary and middle school.

Then, Herman’s father decided to move to Simi Valley in California, where Herman was going to high school and was passionate about football.

But Herman’s father, who more than once embarrassed his son in front of his friends, ended up in and out of rehab facilities and losing one job after another in Simi Valley before moving back to Cincinnati.

There, too, Herman’s father wore out welcomes with family and friends and ended up living on the streets.

While Tom and Michelle were living in Huntsville, where Tom was receivers coach at Sam Houston State from 2001-04, they paid a shelter in Cincinnati $10 a day so Herman’s father could get meals and a room with a cot.

It was at that shelter a worker walked into the room of Thomas Joseph Herman Jr. and found him dead at the age of 52.

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“Michelle and I were very specific in targeting places that we were going to donate to, one, because of my history with some of those issues, and hers as well,” Herman said on a teleconference last week.

Another one of those “issues” - domestic violence - was witnessed first-hand by Herman as a child when a man Herman's mother was dating abused her.

Herman said, Michelle “has a close friend who was in an abusive relationship.”

“We really wanted to get something out there that’s on the front lines,” Herman said.

“The Food Bank, I mean that’s 40,000 meals. Boom, right there. And we wanted to help the vulnerable populations in this with Meals on Wheels delivering food to the elderly and homebound, and, obviously, to the homeless shelter.

“Stuff like that, it makes you want to give so much more when you see your community and the people in it suffering.”