TwitterWhat a good uncle!
Matt Damon caused quite the stir at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln Wednesday when he toured the campus with his nephew Jackson (Damon is Jackson's uncle by way of Matt's marriage to Luciana Bozán Barroso).
The South Florida football star has enrolled at UNL and plans to play on the Husker football team as a defensive back in August, but before he made his final decision, he wanted to check out the campus and brought his famous uncle along for approval.
Damon famously dropped out of Harvard to pursue an acting career, but the Oscar-winning star reportedly told his nephew he was impressed with UNL's academics.
"It was Matt's first time and he was amazed," Jackson told local press. "He said Nebraska had so much to offer. We went through the whole orientation process. He found out a lot of stuff he didn't know. He was like ‘Man, I love this. It's great. The setup here is great. They don't want you to drop off.' That's the main thing he liked about it. The college is not going to just let you be out there on your own. There's help everywhere to get the help you need."
As for why Damon ditched his busy schedule to check out the college campus?
"He really wanted to come," Jackson said. "My aunt couldn't go, but my uncle said he wanted to go and he really wanted to go up there and see it. That's how he ended up coming here."
Too sweet! And now that Jackson's an official Husker, his uncle is obviously a fan.
"He racked up so much Husker gear at the bookstore," the soon-to-be college freshman said. "He bought everything."
Two UNL students also tell E! News about their encounter with the A-lister, and they couldn't help but gush over Damon's down to Earth demeanor.
"My friend Cory and I are taking summer classes at UNL and we heard Matt Damon was on campus so we decided to go to the student Union to try and find him," Tanner Hannappel, a Sophomore Bio/pre-med at UNL tells E! News. "As we were walking in the Union, he was walking out so we turned around and caught up to him. We asked him why he was on campus and he said his nephew was coming here this year so he was here for new student enrollment."
"He was very easy to talk to and down to earth," Cory Foland, a junior architecture major adds.
And the UNL staff express the same sentiments:
"Matt was really engaged in the process, and we treated him like just any average person visiting the school," University of Nebraska spokesperson Steve Smith tells E! News. "He came across really impressed with the university."
When Damon's not busy showing his Husker spirit, the 42-year-old star has been working on his upcoming films.
The trailer for Damon's sci-fi thriller Elysium has just been released, and the flick is shaping up to be one of the summer's biggest blockbusters (the film hits theaters Aug. 9).
He was also recently snapped on the set of Monuments Men with costar George Clooney. The drama—which hits theaters Dec. 18—is based on real-life World War II events.
—Additional reporting by Baker Machado