SPORTSILLUSTRATEDDECEMBER202055It’s such a romantic image of us holding up a
blazing beacon of righteousness, possibly while
draped in Roman togas or cinched into Greek
wrestling thongs, running a relay through the
dark cobblestone streets to illuminate the cheering
onlookers about the virtues of social justice. Man,
I want to see that movie. Unfortunately, the reality
of torch-wielding is much less romantic. Which
makes it all the more important—and makes
LeBron James all the more worthy of this award.
First, there is no passing of the torch. Since this
award was named after Muhammad Ali in 2014,
the recipients have been Magic Johnson (2014);
Jack Nicklaus (2015); Jim Brown, Bill Russell and
me (2016); Colin Kaepernick (2017); John Cena
(2018); and Warrick Dunn (2019). This award is
meant to “celebrate individuals whose dedication
to the ideals of sportsmanship has spanned de-cades and whose career in athletics has directly or
indirectly impacted the world.” LeBron certainly
checks those boxes. But the reason I’m rejecting
the passing-the-torch metaphor is that it suggests
that the extraordinary contributions and sacrifices
of Jack Nicklaus, John Cena and Warrick Dunn are
less torch-worthy because they weren’t focused
on the volatile issue of social justice.
Many athletes are hoisted on the collective shoul-
ders of society, but few dedicate themselves as dili-
gently to their community as they do to their sport.
The exceptional ones who do so over an extended
period of time, never f lagging despite the rise and
fall of their own personal fortunes—those are the
athletes worthy of our admiration. In that way, we
each fashion our own unique signature torch and,THE TRUE LEGACY
OF LEBRON:
THAT ENTIRE
TEAMS, NOT JUST
PL AY ER S, WILL
PUBLICLY DENOUNCE
PR EJ UDICE.
DA
VID
(^) E.
(^) KL
UT
HO