"There is always something to fight for," Ayanbadejo said. "That's something I learned at a young age."
And he's not shy about articulating his thoughts about that, and on a variety of other subjects. Take his position on gay marriage, for example.
Homosexuality can be a prickly topic in a locker room, but that didn't stop Ayanbadejo, who has a daughter, Anaya Lee, from arguing in the Huffington Post: "If Britney Spears can party it up in Vegas with one of her boys and go get married on a whim and annul her marriage the next day, why can't a loving same-sex couple tie the knot? How could our society grant more rights to a heterosexual, one-night-stand wedding in Vegas than a gay couple that has been together for 3, 5, 10 years of true love?"
It's an experience to stand next to the 6-foot-1, 225-pound Ayanbadejo and carry on a conversation. Physically, he's an intimidating presence, with muscles so sharply defined, you can imagine him doing push-ups and crunches in his sleep. There isn't another player on the Ravens, from Ray Lewis on down, who takes fitness and nutrition as seriously as Ayanbadejo.
But he's also one of the worldliest Ravens, a definition that fits him both figuratively and literally. Although Ayanbadejo was born in Chicago in 1976, he and his family moved to Lagos, Nigeria, when he was 1 and lived there for three years before returning to the United States.
In 1999, after Ayanbadejo graduated from UCLA, the NFL wasn't interested in his skills, even though he was first-team All-Pacific-10 as a senior. His football wanderings began. Ayanbadejo played in the Canada Football League in 2000 for the Winnipeg Blue Bombers and Toronto Argonauts. The Ravens signed him in 2001 but sent him to NFL Europe, where he played for the Amsterdam Admirals. He returned to Canada in 2002 to play for the British Columbia Lions before catching on as a special teams player with the Miami Dolphins in 2003.
"Europe was crazy because you sleep in a twin-size bed and that's considered luxurious," Ayanbadejo said. "People live simply there, but they're also a little healthier. It was a great time to learn about different cultures and immerse myself in that lifestyle. In Canada, the people there were like halfway between Europeans and Americans. So that was pretty cool to see the different ways people live."
