Austin Ekeler gets to play – and often dominates – in front of packed stadiums and a national audience with the Los Angeles Chargers.
While thousands of fans watch him play in person each week, he couldn’t have gotten to the NFL if not for his work behind the scenes. He follows a simple mantra, one he traces back to workouts in his high school weight room: “Do the right thing when no one is looking.”
“It helps me push myself every day because I work out on my own and say, okay, if someone was watching me, would they think I'm pushing myself?” the star running back told NBC.
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Ekeler was an undrafted free agent out of Western State when he signed with the Chargers in 2017. Before that, he was a three-sport athlete at Eaton High School in Colorado.
He remembers former NFL defensive lineman Mitch Unrein returning to Eaton to help renovate the school’s weight room. Now, through the Austin Ekeler Foundation, he is paying it forward for the next generation.
The foundation unveiled its first new weight room for Santa Barbara High School in 2020, featuring state-of-the-art equipment, sound systems and a new flooring. Over the summer, New England Patriots wide receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster and five-time Pro Bowler Jurrell Casey partnered with the foundation to renovate the weight room at their alma mater, Long Beach Polytechnic High School.
“The weight room projects that we've been doing are really near and dear to my heart because I feel like there's a lot of transferable skills that I learned from the weight room and wanted to continue to renovate weight rooms for other schools that maybe hadn't had that in a while,” Ekeler said.
Ekeler knows it can be hard enough to find the motivation to get to the gym, and he knows it’s even harder when the facility itself is underwhelming.
“If the floorboards are up and it's all janky, it's probably a little bit more discouraging,” he said. “Like, let's get something that's actually inviting.”
Stepping into the gym is just the beginning. There’s still the actual workout.
While the physical work can be daunting, Ekeler tries to instill in kids that the weight room is just as much about training the mind as it is the body.
“The way you think matters. If you think it's like, oh, I will work out and get sweaty, it's going to be hard, then you're probably going to discourage yourself. And that's really deconstructive of the thoughts of the weight room,” he said. “I don't go to the weight room to do the physical things. Those are a side result of what I'm doing, but I go to the weight room to build my mental capacity to be able to push myself so that when I get into the other things in my life, it transfers over and I'm ready to push myself. “
Ekeler loves the excitement from the students he meets through his foundation, creating some unforgettable memories for kids who get to see a professional athlete in person. Still, he takes greater joy from the thought of the lasting impact of the project itself.
“I always tell these kids this and like, you're not going to remember me, but guess what? This is still going to be here for you,” he said. “And what is going to matter is that you come in here and utilize this. Because you think you're just going to do a workout, but actually you're learning how to build mental toughness, how to push yourself, physical attributes that you're gaining, self-esteem, all these different skills that transfer into other things. That's why I encourage everyone to find some physical activity to do in the weight room.
“So the reception's great at the very moment, but I know down the road it's all for generations going to be there helping these kids.”
The Austin Ekeler Foundation’s community contributions aren’t limited to weight rooms, though it does have another one in the works. Ekeler concentrates on “tangible” resources and has helped bring football equipment, school supplies, washers and dryers to schools in areas with low-income housing. He also tries to connect communities through his online event company, Twitch streams and an interactive app.
Ekeler says his community efforts bring out the “best version” of himself, and he has no intention of slowing down.
“I would like to do this for as long as I'm alive,” Ekeler said. “Continue to create different verticals where we can help. Right now we're starting out with gyms just to get our traction and get our feet moving and then continue to build other verticals where we continue to really focus on implementing resources back into the community.”
Ekeler and the Chargers will face the Chicago Bears on Sunday Night Football on Oct. 29.