Editor’s note: In the final 50 days before Chip Kelly and the Ducks return to the field to defend their status as Pac-12 Champions, the Emerald sports desk will take a look back at one Oregon alum each day whose jersey number corresponds to the amount of days left before the season opener against Arkansas State.
Oregon’s all-time leader in tackles-for-loss, Saul Patu terrorized backfields in the Pacific-10 Conference from 1997 to 2000 and is easy choice to feature with 48 days now separating the Ducks from Arkansas State. Patu came to the Ducks from Rainer Beach High School in Seattle and immediately made an impact for head coach Mike Bellotti and defensive coordinator Nick Aliotti.
A four-year starter for the Ducks, Patu would go on to have a brief NFL career before ending up in the Arena Football League. @@http://www.denverpost.com/crush/ci_5311703@@ There he set records on both sides of the ball, recording the Colorado Crush’s all-time marks for sacks and yards per carry by a fullback.
But Patu’s career numbers, impressive as they may be, don’t begin to tell the whole story. Not even close.
His journey to Oregon offered an escape from a gang lifestyle in the south Seattle neighborhood where he grew up, but early on in his collegiate career Patu had disciplinary issues both on and off the field.
By the end of his time in Eugene, Patu was among the more vocal leaders on the team, pushing his teammates to give full effort in every drill and scrimmage. Since his retirement from professional football, Patu has turned to his faith and dedicated himself to working with at-risk youth in an effort to guide them away from the poor decisions he made in his youth. He is now a pastor in Eugene where he lives with his wife and kids.
He served as team chaplain for the Oregon basketball squad in 2009, and in the tumultuous offseason following Oregon’s Rose Bowl loss to Ohio State (in which Jeremiah Masoli, LaMichael James and other Ducks had scrapes with the law), Patu offered up his own story as a reminder to judge slowly. When a billboard mocking the two stars went up downtown, Patu spoke up.
“I’m not saying don’t hold them accountable,” he told the Register-Guard in 2010. “But we have to remember, these are young men in training.”