QuickTake:
The celebrity power couple was seen downtown and at the Eugene Trader Joe’s ahead of ESPN College GameDay’s Saturday broadcast.
Pop star Madison Beer was seen in Eugene this week with her boyfriend and University of Oregon football icon Justin Herbert.
The sighting is a sign of Herbert potentially serving as the guest picker for “ESPN College GameDay’s” return to Eugene on Saturday, Nov. 22 — and the first Eugene appearance of an up-and-coming celebrity power-coupling.
Beer, 26, is an ascending pop star who was featured in Rolling Stone this week. Her third album, “Locket,” will be released in January. She and Herbert, the 27-year-old quarterback for the Los Angeles Chargers, sparked rumors of a romance earlier this year.
It has since blossomed into a full-blown celebrity relationship, courtside appearance in Los Angeles and all. Lookout Eugene-Springfield broke down their respective arcs back in September.
It’s less surprising for Herbert, who is from Eugene and whose parents still live here, to be spotted around town as the holidays approach.
But this week, Beer’s Instagram story stoked speculation via DucksWire that Beer and Herbert were coming to Eugene ahead of ”ESPN College GameDay.” A photo taken pointing out of a window seemed to show Mount Shasta in Northern California, which would be visible on a flight from Los Angeles to Eugene; her next story update featured familiar evergreens.
Then Lookout Eugene-Springfield got eyewitness confirmation that Beer and Herbert were in Eugene this week. Staff photographer Isaac Wasserman ran into them at the Trader Joe’s at Oakway Center on Tuesday, Nov. 18. The couple was then seen in downtown Eugene by two Lookout staff members on Wednesday, Nov. 19.
Herbert and Beer declined a request for a photo and comment.
There are unanswered questions about Beer’s time in Lane County: Is she going to hike Spencer Butte? What does she get at Voodoo Doughnut? Does she like tie-dye? (We’ve reached out to Beer’s publicist for comment but did not immediately receive a response.)
A conversation with our Ducks correspondent
The most pressing question has nothing to do with Beer exploring Eugene. Could she or Herbert be the guest picker on the “GameDay” show this Saturday? As “GameDay” prepares to make its second visit to Eugene this season, I held an emergency conference with our Ducks correspondent Tyson Alger.
Alger was doubtful that Beer would be the picker, instead pointing to UO sports heroes like Herbert and Marcus Mariota – both on bye weeks and not playing this Sunday – as more feasible options.
“It’s going to be on campus for the second time this year. It seems like the Ducks are kind of running out of viable celebrity candidates to come in and do that, because, frankly, most of them are playing on Sundays during the fall,” Alger said.
But what about a pop star as a guest picker?
“The problem is,” he continued, “and I don’t mean to be sexist here by any sense of the imagination, but does Madison know ball?”
