As the sun rose over Machu Picchu Monday morning, the new day began a new era for Scott Fujita.
As the light shined upon the ancient Incan ruins, Fujita, a Cal alumnus and an NFL linebacker, perched on one of its giant stone slabs and signed a one-day contract with the New Orleans Saints. By Tuesday, his contract will expire, and he will no longer be a professional football player.
But Fujita was not at Machu Picchu to fancifully end his NFL career. This journey was never about him in the first place — it was for his friend and former Saints teammate Steve Gleason, who is debilitated by ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Fujita and company carried the wheelchaired Gleason up 10,000 feet to Machu Picchu in a 10-hour journey to raise awareness of ALS. As Fujita signed his contract, Gleason sat by his side.
Over the years, Cal football has produced superstar players like Aaron Rodgers, DeSean Jackson and Tony Gonzalez, but none has been more active in social issues than Fujita. He has been the most exemplary athlete to represent Cal at the professional level.
In addition to having a productive 11-year career in the NFL, which included a Super Bowl ring with the Saints in 2010, Fujita has made his mark in the league as a humanitarian and activist. From the restoration of Louisiana wetlands and the promotion of LGBT rights to ALS awareness, Fujita has forged a reputation as a model NFL player, on and off the field.
Recently, Fujita made national headlines for his New York Times op-ed supporting marriage equality. Playing in a hyper-masculine league in which homosexuality remains a taboo subject, Fujita stepped up as one of the very few athletes who has outspokenly backed the issue. With murmurs that NFL players might come out in the foreseeable future, Fujita is currently at the forefront of creating an environment for what could be a seminal moment in professional sports history.
As Fujita leaves his professional playing days behind, a new crop of collegiate athletes waits to enter the league via this weekend’s NFL Draft. Hundreds of athletes, including a handful from Cal, will wait for their chance to get their golden ticket to play football and earn millions of dollars.
But what this society needs more from the NFL — or any professional league — are player-activists like Fujita. Although lionizing athletes as heroes is a wary path to tread, the impact that professional athletes can have on a community is significant and positive.
It’s foolish to expect that a majority of the professional athletes will become player-activists like Fujita. But it’s not wishful thinking to expect more athletes outspoken and active on social causes.
The best place to foster this mentality is at the university level, and UC Berkeley has the prime prestige and precedent to spearhead the changes. Many of Cal’s student-athletes — some of whom will become professional athletes, Olympians, etc. — are already active in non-athletic groups, but the activism is still limited.
Fujita was interviewed two years ago by The Daily Californian and stated that he believed Cal student-athletes, while more active in comparison to those at other campuses, were not fulfilling their potential.
For the Cal community, the legacy Fujita forged is not just a badge of honor — it is a mandate that needs an heir for the advancement of the world we live in.
Contact Seung Y. Lee at [email protected] Follow him on Twitter @sngyn92.