​ATLANTA — When the breast cancer came back and metastasized to her bones in 2021, Judith Fujito underwent various treatments for years before she decided to use California’s End of Life Option Act. She had lived with the intense pain, and she told her three adult children she didn’t want to linger in illness. In the weeks between her decision and her death, Fujito took time to see everyone she had come to know and love over her 86 years, and after spending six decades in the Bay Area, she had many people and places to bid goodbye.She called this her swan song, and she was pragmatic about it all. She knew this was the right way, for her, to do this.Fujito died the morning of Aug. 13, 2026, at her daughter Barbara’s home. But the evening before, there was one final family gathering Fujito wanted to enjoy. She asked everyone to come together to watch the Golden State Valkyries and coach Natalie Nakase.To Fujito, it was never just “Coach” or “Coach Nat,” as many fans have come to call her. It was always “Coach Natalie Nakase,” emphasis on the Nakase — a name Fujito instantly recognized as a traditional Japanese surname.Fujito, a Japanese American, was a lifelong sports fan who played basketball in high school. So, when the Bay Area received a WNBA expansion team, she was overjoyed. But when the franchise hired Nakase as head coach, the team became her own. And the more she learned of Nakase, the closer she felt to the coach she never met.Fujito had spent three years in a Japanese internment camp in California during the 1940s as a child, and she felt an even deeper connection to Nakase when she discovered her husband had been in the same internment camp where Nakase’s father was born. Though she was never healthy enough during either of the Valkyries’ two seasons to attend a game in person, she never missed them on TV, becoming a super fan.“That was immediately the thing that connected her to the team,” Fujito’s daughter Barbara Fujito Fritschen said. “Then, she just became a fan and started watching all the games. I feel like that’s kind of what has drawn in a lot of people. I think a lot of Asians have been drawn in because the coach is Asian. … My mom, she definitely had a special pride.”It wasn’t just Nakase’s name that Fujito recognized and to which she felt a connection. It was how Nakase acted with her players, how she spoke to the media, how she operated in a space that doesn’t have many people who look like her. She also loved that Kaitlyn Chen, a Taiwanese American, was on the team.“To see someone like Kaitlyn, with the naysayers and the people who probably just didn’t believe in her, even her own community possibly, I think that’s really more amazing,” Nakase said. “She has to go out there and prove it with her physical talent and her mental talent, and I think that’s 10 times harder.”According to a 2020 report by UCF, Asian representation in women’s college basketball was 0.7 p