OAKLAND, Calif. -- His hair long ago turned white, his joints are stiffer and his gait more deliberate. Age is tugging at him, as it always does for the luckiest among us. It is winter for Bill Russell, a member of American royalty.

For Russell is among the last of a vanishing breed, courageous athletes of color who during a time of racial strife dared to use the power of their platform to remind this nation of its most glorious promise, that of freedom and justice for all.

Russell turned 79 in February and there he was last week, the champion of champions, sitting before 150 or folks in the gym at McClymonds High, his old school, deep in the bowels of West Oakland, wearing Warriors pride and dispensing wisdom.

Russell touched on the usual topics, from the importance of community to the power of education, from personal experiences about the globe to his fondness for basketball and those who play the game that made him famous.

He also answered the Kobe vs. LeBron question in the best possible way: It's too soon to call, because each man's body of work remains under construction.

So, too, is that of Russell.

It doesn't make a difference where you come from. It's about where you're going.

He's more visible now than he ever was, and that enriches us all. The man once associated with supreme intellect on the court and icy aloofness off it-though undying loyalty to those he considers friends - is finding sublime symmetry in his dotage.

What I found particularly striking last week was Russell's humanity and, moreover, his eagerness to share it.

Many of us know the history. Russell won 11 championships in 13 NBA seasons, two national championships at the University of San Francisco and a gold medal in the 1956 Olympics. He was the first African American to coach or manage a major American sports team-and to appear in an ad campaign for a Fortune 500 company. He has written books, lunched with five presidents and somehow maintained this image of prickly detachment.

In recent years, however, Russell has embraced the role of ambassador. He travels the country and the world under the umbrella of basketball and humanitarian issues. He does TV commercials with current NBA stars. He's at All-Star Weekend, at the NBA Finals.

It's as if Russell has opened his arms and waved us into his world, which had seemed so closed for so very long.

It warms the heart to see this champion of champions grinning broadly while posing for photographs with folks young enough to be his great-grandchildren. It soothes the soul to listen as he engages them, spinning tales of tales of his incredibly rich and absurdly textured life.

If they tell you you can't go to college, do not listen.

One could search the history of sports on this planet, and maybe others, and not find an individual with a better grasp of what it takes to be successful in competition. But this five-time NBA MVP also is a lifetime MVP: Most Valuable Person.

So cherish Russell and the royal tigers while you can. His good friend Brown is 77 and walks with a cane. Ali is 71 and virtually silent. Dr. Harry Edwards is 70, and Arthur Ashe would be 70 if not for a life cut short.

They gave of themselves in ways today's athletes cannot conceive. We have made the misguided cultural leap from the photograph of Ali and Brown and Russell standing up and taking a stand for equality and that of, say, Terrell Owens sitting on the set of "Dr. Phil" to face the mothers of his three of his children.

That's why the presence of Russell means so much. How many of the great athletes of today will have such immense social wisdom to share 40 years from now? Who among them might someday be worthy of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, as was bestowed upon Russell in 2011?

The room listens to Russell, as it should, for he survived an America that too often gave him little more than cold shoulders and hot grief.

I've had all kinds of success. But my foundation is here.

Russell represents living history. He is a learning experience, a book never more open - and necessary.

• Read more articles by MONTE POOLE

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