Fear and Football – the Scott Fujita Story Featured in Films of Remembrance
A version of this article originally appeared in Nichi Bei Weekly.
Students of the wartime incarceration are likely familiar with the role that baseball played during the wartime incarceration, but it may come as a surprise that most of the WRA concentration camps and Crystal City DOJ prison site also had their own football teams. Overshadowed perhaps by the extensive prewar Nisei baseball league culture, football rivaled baseball’s popularity as a spectator sport in the 1940s. However, given the smaller stature of most Nisei compared to the average high school and collegiate footballers, there were few players hailing from the Japanese American community. 9066: Fear, Football, and the Theft of Freedom sheds some light on this lesser known sports culture, centered on the high school football team at Heart Mountain.
The short documentary released in 2025 frames the story of camp from the scarcely heard perspective of a transracial adoptee, former NFL linebacker and Super Bowl champion Scott Fujita, whose story is used as a narrative device that connects wartime history to the present. Early in the film Fujita expresses how feelings of uncertainty about his unique positionality to the incarceration had left him conflicted at times, and unsure how much of his family history he should publicly share.
Although specific to his circumstance as an adoptee, Fujita’s concerns can be understood within the larger context of the racial imposter syndrome that many Japanese Americans face as ethnic peoples who have been forcibly assimilated, away from our culture of origin. Fujita’s claim to this history is genuine. Raised by a Sansei camp survivor, Rod Fujita, Scott’s connection to intergenerational trauma is palpable throughout the film, as is the moral obligation he expresses when sharing his family’s story of wartime incarceration.
The film itself was borne out of a collaboration between NFL Media, the official media entity of professional football, and Cactus Productions, an Emmy Award-winning media creation company based in Cody, Wyoming. In a May 2024 article published by Cowboy State Daily, director Chris Jones credits Bradford Pearson’s book “The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America” as the inspiration for this film. “The more I learned about it, the more I wanted to tell this story and let people know about this overlooked part of American history,” Jones said. “That was the genesis of the documentary.”
Pearson is featured in a key interview for the film. His 2021 book explores the history of Heart Mountain through the lens of its numerous incarceree-led sports and athletics clubs, centering the story of the titular Heart Mountain high school football team who held the distinction of being the best team in the state of Wyoming during WWII. They remained undefeated in their 1943 season.
After exploring some of the well-trodden but interestingly told remembrances of Heart Mountain camp survivors, the film shifts its focus to the Eagles. This is where the film really shines as Pearson recounts the incredible saga of the celebrated high school athletes, interspersed with remembrances from camp survivors including former Eagles player George Iseri, and others who watched the storied team play live. Like all great sports stories, at its core are the ragtag group of student athletes who punched high above their weight, overcoming adversity and winning despite the odds being stacked against them.
The documentary later touches on the Heart Mountain Fair Play Committee draft resistance and also Scott Fujita’s 442 RCT veteran grandfather. It then goes on to introduce the parallels between post 9/11 Islamophobia and the wartime scapegoating of Japanese Americans, expounding on Heart Mountain’s connection to Norman Mineta, and his role in helping to stem the tide of anti-Muslim racism as a member of George W. Bush’s cabinet when he served as Secretary of Transportation from 2001-2006.
The film is bookended by Scott and Rod Fujita touring the Heart Mountain Interpretive Center, featuring an emotional moment when both father and son get choked up reflecting on the fact that Rod’s father died the year before Redress was passed, and did not live to see the federal government apologize.
Overall, this film hits the same beats as many camp films, but the inclusion of the Eagles football story and unconventional framing from Scott Fujita’s perspective as a transracial adoptee make it a unique and worthy addition to the 2026 Films of Remembrance program. More so, the fact that such a film was produced by NFL Media is significant in its ability to reach a general audience, in the same ways that Pearson’s book has.