Where have all the champions gone? When was the last time a great athlete loved to do what he did best just for himself, not for the fame and wealth? I can name a few: Lance Armstrong, battling off cancer and winning the Tour de France, and Cal Ripken, who could have retired happily many years ago, but hiis yen of baseball kept him in the Major Leauges. This world is losing champions. Not just champions of athletics, but champions of the mind and spirit. Where are people like Gandhi and Einstein going? We are being corrupted by greed and hate. Athletes of today do not care about the people they influence, just the money they make. Athletics are being corrupted by merchandizing. When has a players shirt style or brand been more important than their skill or charm? When was the last time a writer wrote something to promote social justice, not a novel that is for pleasant reading. We need a challenge, someone who fights the system because the system is wrong, a person who wants to be famous for what he says or does, not for the publicity he aquires while doing it. I am not condemning the merchandizers, the athletes, the writers, or whoever else i may have targeted. They can do what they want. But where have the champions gone, and when are they coming back? It almost reminds me of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. The men of the mind have quit, and the people who have used others die off. The champions have left us, and they may never come back. No more Galileos, no more Picassos, no more Jackie Robinsons will come to change how we live. Oh, there might be some minor changes by people who thing that something is wrong, but the earth shakers have all retired.