In the blink of an eye, Curtis Williams’ life was changed forever, Rick Neuheisel, the UW football coach, told members of Phi Gamma Delta, a UW fraternity yesterday.

Neuheisel arrived as the encouraging, Rose Bowl-winning coach he has become at UW, yet as he began to speak on the events involving Curtis Williams and the past year, Neuheisel’s tone quickly turned emotional and inspirational.

“Last October, two inches on a routine tackle made the difference in the life of Curtis Williams, and now you have gone the extra mile to show a great player like Williams that the UW community is truly dedicated to helping him,” Neuheisel said to the members of the fraternity.

Williams suffered a neck injury during a football game at Stanford Oct. 28, 2000, which left him paralyzed from the waist down. Yet Phi Gamma Delta, known as the “Fijis,” did not focus on the great season the Husky football team had, but rather on helping Williams’ chances for walking again and helping with his escalating hospital costs.

The 94 Fiji members organized a charity event to run the Husky game ball to Pasadena, Calif., in time for the UW’s Rose Bowl victory New Year’s of this year.

Along the way they also managed to raise $21,000 for the Curtis Williams Fund through alumni pledges.

Jeff Nellans, a sophomore economics major, said the fraternity’s decision to help Williams was instinctual.

“When you stand behind the success of Husky football as a community, and something horrible happens, as in the case of Williams, you have to do what you can to prove that you stand behind the members of that team,” Nellans said.

Philanthropy, however, is not something new to Phi Gamma Delta. Two years ago the fraternity took part in a fundraiser for Children’s Hospital and Regional Medical Center, raising $23,000. Last year, the Fijis completed an unofficial world record, running the three-man weave around Green Lake for 600 miles to raise over $14,000 for the Gary Payton Foundation, which benefits underprivileged youth in the Seattle area.

Neuheisel has been to see Williams several times since he was discharged from the Santa Clara Valley Medical Center in February. Every time he leaves, Neuheisel asks himself how he would have reacted if he were Williams.

“It is a question that you can never answer if you have never experienced it,” Neuheisel said. “However, the one thing I do know is that the UW community cannot say ‘thank you’ enough for your help. You have proved to Curtis [Williams] how much he means to the UW community.”