There goes my hero, watch him as he goes. There goes my hero, he's ordinary.

The person of the week this week is Roberto Clemente. I honestly have no idea why I landed on Clemente this week. He has, in fact, been dead since December 31, 1972. However, he is a name that I will always think of when I think what is right in the world of sports. If the only reason sports exist is for people like Clemente, then they are worth the fact that someone gets paid millions of dollars to play a game while other people cannot even have a dollar a day to live in some parts of the world.

You see Clemente was a damn fine baseball player. He had 3000 hits. Exactly 3000 hits when he finished playing in the 1972 baseball season. He was elected to the baseball Hall of Fame in 1973. Deservingly so. (Is deservingly a word?)

On December 23, 1972 an earthquake struck Managua, Nicaragua, a city Clemente had visited just three weeks earlier. Active in charity work, and a prominent Latino star, the Puerto Rican Clemente organized three flights of supplies to help the city. Unfortunately, the aid packages were all diverted by the corrupt Somoza government. For the fourth flight Clemente decided to be a passenger as well. He thought his presence would keep the aid from being diverted.

Sadly, the plane never made it to Nicaragua. The plane crashed shortly after take off into the ocean off the coast of Puerto Rico. His body was never recovered.

Roberto Clemente is an inspiration not for his athleticism nor his charity work. Nor for using his fame to promote a cause. Many people thanklessly do this. Clemente is an inspiration because he used his fame to actually do something and take a stand. He willingly put himself on that plane in order to ensure the aid got to the people it needed to get to and not to the hands of the corrupt officials. If that plane had landed safely and Clemente delivered the supplies he would still be an inspiration. Instead he perished in an accident and his inspiration became a tragedy.

The saddest part of this is we may never see another Clemente. The athletes of the late 1960s and 1970s, especially those of African or Latino ethnicity, were a different breed. They were athletes who found themselves in positions of fame, respect, and privilege not before offered to their race in America. They knew they had been given that gift not because of their own talents, but because many, many people before them had fought for their right to be treated equally. Therefore they spoke out against oppression, were active in civil rights, and valued their own integrity more than a dollar sign. Will we see this ever again in American sports? Where are our Roberto Clemente's? We deserve a better class of athletes ... ones that could truly be counted on as role models.