COURTNEY STEWART/Daily Bruin Despite his successful
football career, senior tight end Bryan Fletcher
remains grounded.
By Hannah Gordon
Daily Bruin Reporter
Bryan Fletcher thinks he’s going to die. As the woman
driving him around Westwood decides at the last minute to turn
left, blocking a lane of traffic on a busy L.A. street, causing a
stream of honking and inciting one driver to inform her not once,
but twice to learn to drive, Fletcher is reminded of his trip
to Africa.
“There were 16 million people in one city,” he
recalled. “You can imagine the traffic. There were no lines,
no police to enforce anything, people doing U-turns in front of
each other. It was so crowded.”
Most people might not choose to spend their summer vacation like
that, but Fletcher, UCLA’s senior tight end, is not most
people.
“Not only is he a good football player, but he is a great
person,” senior wide receiver Brian Poli-Dixon said.
“He is the kind of guy you look up to.”
Fletcher has the strength and frame of a run blocker and the
soft hands of a receiver, making him an ideal tight end. His
talents make him a standout at UCLA and may lead him to the NFL,
but he remains humble.
“Bryan is an outstanding young adult who is well respected
by the coaches and the players. He’s very deep and has high
morals,” tight end coach Gary Bernardi said.
After growing up in a strong family that taught him to know
where he came from, Fletcher jumped at the opportunity to
experience his roots first hand on a trip sponsored by Athletes In
Action, a campus Christian group.
“(Fletcher is) a very sensitive, caring person.”
Marques Anderson UCLA football
Before leaving to Nigeria and the Ivory Coast, Fletcher, along
with senior free safety Marques Anderson and his brother Terrell, a
running back for the San Diego Chargers, wondered how they, as
African Americans, would be received by the African people.
“They treated us as their own, as brothers,”
Fletcher said. “There was no disparity or resentment or
anything.”
Fletcher will never forget the people he met there nor the
indescribable poverty that made him realize just how lucky
Americans are to have the luxuries they take for granted. That
appreciation does not surprise anyone who knows him.
“He’s a really sensitive, caring person,”
Anderson said. “Bryan already appreciates things over here,
so that (trip) just put a whole other level on his
appreciation.”
One of the most emotional experiences of the trip was visiting a
slave port.
Unlike going to a slave museum in the United States, where he
could walk out and return to his everyday life, Fletcher was struck
by the harsh reality of emerging from the historic site and seeing
the African people still struggling. He is still saddened by
the heartbreaking e-mails he receives from people he met asking him
to help them get a visa to come to the U.S.
Yet Fletcher wants to dispel misconceptions people have of
Africa as solely a place of poverty.
“The landscape is beautiful and the strength of the people
is incredible,” he said. “They have the resolve to be
in a poverty-stricken situation, worse than any project in America,
and not be bitter. They were proud of being from Nigeria, of who
they were and where they were.”
Fletcher’s descriptions of the demeanor of the people is
strikingly similar to people’s descriptions of him.
“He’s got a presence about him, so when he speaks,
people listen,” senior linebacker Ryan Nece said.
“He’s the kind of guy who walks into a room and by the
end of the night, everybody is talking about Bryan
Fletcher.”
It is this presence, perhaps, that enabled him to teach football
to people who had never heard of the game, much less an end zone or
a hash mark;Â to travel the Ivory Coast with a French phrase
book and connect with the people he met; and to be so well loved by
his teammates at UCLA.
“Fletch is a person you never get sick of, that you always
want to be around,” senior tailback DeShaun Foster
said. “He’s real down to earth. He’ll never
look at you differently. You could do something to Fletch, and
he’ll still be your friend.”
Fletcher forgave his driver for the traffic fiasco. He focuses
on the big things.