Forty-two years ago, professional athletes didn't have so much to protect. They lived, for the most part, in middle-class or upper-middle-class communities. They were very much a part of unglamorous neighborhood life. Many of them had offseason jobs. They were easy to see, to touch and interact with. The most famous among them, from Jim Brown to Wilt Chamberlain to Muhammad Ali to Bill Bradley, engaged in the everyday conversations and took, at times, difficult positions. Some of them stood with, marched with Dr. King. Perhaps I'm romanticizing the times a bit, but so many of them seemed happy to stiff-arm efforts, if there were any, of agents, marketing experts, public relations sycophants, fearful front-office executives and lackeys with access to talk them off expressing their positions