Photograph by Michael O'Neill

"There are, he insists, only two alternatives. If enough human beings do not advance the common good, we cannot go on; we shall move from suffering a chain of sustainable losses to suffering extinction. But if enough do, if enough coaches find the grace to hold the guilt-stricken athlete who just lost the title and tell him that it's just a game, that he has nothing to be ashamed of, that he can leave his knife in his pocket, then Arthur Ashe will always be on cloud nine."

Text by Kenny Moore
Issue Date: December 21, 1992

Thirteen years after retiring from professional tennis, Arthur Ashe actively supported countless charities and humanitarian causes, including the American Heart Association, the United Negro College Fund and his own Foundation for the Defeat of AIDS. The 1975 Wimbledon champion and winner of two other Grand Slam events also fought diligently for human rights, particularly to end apartheid in South Africa. On Febuary 6, 1993 -- two months after receiving the Sportsman award -- Ashe died in New York of AIDS-related pneumonia.