SEATTLE — When she closes her eyes, college sophomore Courtney Ioane can visualize the statue of Bruce Lee that she wants erected on the University of Washington campus.
It is bronze and life-size -- not so big that it dominates the area but substantial enough to be noticed. And the legendary fighter and movie star would not be punching or kicking but sitting in a meditative pose.
"Bruce Lee was more than a martial artist," said Ioane, 20. "He also had an amazing philosophy of life. He's a cultural icon recognized all over the world -- except on this campus," where Lee studied for three years in the early 1960s.
Ioane and 20 other University of Washington students have collected more than 1,000 signatures -- including from nearly all members of the men's and women's basketball teams -- as part of the effort to build a monument to Lee.
She said the statue would help represent the campus' diversity, something that is absent in the school's collection of public art. Nearly all of the several dozen statues and busts on the sprawling 700-acre campus are of white men, including the school's namesake, George Washington.
Of the school's 28,570 undergraduates, more than 35% are minorities. One in four students is Asian American. Ioane, from Spokane, Wash., is half Samoan.
University officials have remained noncommittal on the project, and at least one spokesman questioned whether Lee's accomplishments merited a memorial on a college campus.
If the students succeed, the statue would add to a growing list of Lee tributes worldwide. In China, streets have been named and memorials erected in his honor. A massive Lee theme park is under construction in Shunde, China. In Bosnia, a bronze Lee statue was unveiled in 2005 as a symbol of healing and unity.
Lee was born in San Francisco and grew up in Hong Kong. His movies raised martial arts to new levels of popularity and became a source of pride for Asians and Asian Americans who had been commonly depicted as weak in the popular media.
Lee's 1973 movie "Enter the Dragon" was one of the highest-grossing films of that year, and to date it has grossed more than $200 million worldwide. Because he is routinely listed as one of the most recognizable pop culture figures of the 20th century, it surprises some observers that Lee made only four movies.
He died at age 32 of a cerebral edema a few months after completing "Enter the Dragon."
He is buried in Seattle.
