February 3, 2019

Man of the Year

In a shock to no one, former #UVAFB standout and humanitarian extraordinaire Chris Long was named the 2018 Walter Payton Man of the Year. Long has extensive experience in charity and community service. The defensive end established the Chris Long Foundation in 2015 to fulfill three main philanthropic causes: clean water, military appreciation and youth education. Long’s main initiative is Waterboys, a program that has united professional athletes and sports fans to raise funds and awareness to provide clean drinking water to East African communities in need. By February 2018, Long’s goal of building 32 clean water wells, one for every NFL team, was met. Long has now set a goal of providing clean water to one million people.

To date, Waterboys has raised more than $3 million and has funded 55 wells that will provide water to 211,000 people. This last week, Long challenged the people of Twitter to donate $15K in order to convince Beau Allen to climb Mount Killimanjaro this spring. Let’s just say that Beau is now off hopping for some warm climbing gear.

UVA President Jim Ryan was among those tweeting congratulations last night.