The Cal 100: No. 57 -- Nnamdi Asomugha

A star defensive back at Cal and in the NFL, Nnamdi Asomugha is now a lauded actor and producer

We count down the top 100 individuals associated with Cal athletics, based on their impact in sports or in the world at large – a wide-open category. See if you agree.

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No. 57: Nnamdi Asomugha

Cal Sports Connection: Asomugha was a three-year starter at defensive back for Cal’s football team from 2000 to 2002.

Claim to Fame: Asomugha was considered the best cornerback in pro football for a three-year stretch from 2008 through 2010. He is now a lauded actor and producer.

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It’s difficult to pinpoint what Nnamdi Asomugha’s greatest impact has been. Was it as an NFL star when he was considered the best cornerback in pro football? Is it as na actor, having received positive reviews for his work? Or is it as a producer?

The fact that he received a Cal degree in business administration in 2003 would be a major accomplishment for many college football stars, but it was a mere formality for the multi-talented Asomugha.

He was a three-year starter for Cal’s football team from 2000 through 2002, playing free safety the first two seasons, moving to rover (a hybrid safety/linebacker position) for the first half of his senior season and then being switched to cornerback for his final five games. 

Asomugha was not named to the first-team all-Pac-10 squad, and he was expecting to get picked in the fifth or sixth round of the 2003 NFL draft.  But he was a first-round pick (31st overall) of the Oakland Raiders in that draft.

He did not do much his first two pro seasons, but by 2007, he had become a star. In 2008, 2009 and 2010 he was named first-team All-Pro twice and second-team All-Pro once. Asomugha was considered the best cornerback in pro football at the time, as evidenced by these remarkable numbers:

Opposing quarterbacks threw in his direction only 31 times in 2007, and he allowed just 10 completions the entire season. In 2008 he allowed just eight completions, 13 in 2009 and 10 in 2010. He covered the opposing team’s best receiver each game but was still tested less than any other corner in the league.

He was selected to the Fox Sports and USA Today NFL All-Decade teams, and in February 2009, he signed a contract that made him the highest-paid defensive back in history.

Asomugha was less successful in his final three seasons with the Eagles and 49ers and retired after the 2013 season to pursue a career in acting and producing.

His first notable achievement was as the producer and lead actor in a Netflix movie Sylvie’s Choice. Mick LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle gave the movie his second-highest rating with this comment:

As for Asomugha, it came as no surprise that he was a successful football player for years. (He played at Cal and then in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders, the Philadelphia Eagles and the 49ers before retiring in 2013.) He gives Robert a quality of quiet certitude: Even when things aren’t going well for him, even in moments of doubt, he carries with him the physical sureness of someone who knows he is very good at something. He has the ease of knowing he can do something really well that most people can’t do at all.

And the Los Angeles Times' review by Carlos Aguilar said this about Asomugha:

Still, [director Eugene] Ashe bets on the fantastic acting that enthralls with its palpable chemistry, a mix of the stoic and virile flirtatiousness Asomugha brings to his talented character and the hard-earned determination of Thompson’s Sylvie, who goes from housewife to television producer.

Here’s the trailer for Sylvie’s Love.

Asomugha also had an important role in the move The Good Nurse.

The Boston Globe had this to say about Asomugha's performance:

Instead, “The Good Nurse” is at its best as a medical police procedural. It helps that Noah Emmerich and Nnamdi Asomugha, playing the cops, give solid, understated performances.

And Brian Tellerico of rogerebert.com also had favorable things to say about Asomugha:

And the supporting actors are good too, particularly Asomugha, who could easily lead a gritty detective series that I’d watch every week. I like these actors. I just wish they were in a better movie.

Here is Asomugha at the film's showing at the Mill Valley Film Festival:

Asomugha made his Broadway debut in 2020 in A Soldier's Play.  Here is an interview and some scenes from that play:

We end with this excerpt from a San Francisco Chronicle story about Asomugha:

You might be surprised what he considers “the best four years of my life.”

“There was no experience like going to college at UC Berkeley,” Asomugha (pronounced AH-sem-wah) said during a video chat with The Chronicle. “There was nothing like it. … Just how much you grow being in Berkeley in general, and in the Bay Area, next to San Francisco, next to Oakland. Just one of my favorite times ever.”

The Cal 100: No. 58 -- Jeff Tedford

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