Questions of greatness will consume this Super Bowl weekend as Brady and Manning legacies clash once again. But the real contest for the greatest takes place on the day before the Super Bowl in Canton, Ohio, where former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Jerome Bettis is a finalist for induction to the Hall of Fame, the highest NFL honor. And while Tim Tebow has garnered attention for political activism of a smellier kind, Bettis has been doing his own campaigning–for a cause most people can breath easier with.

Since his days on the field (Bettis retired in 2006), Bettis has been an advocate for children suffering from asthma. He has asthma himself, and NFL fans probably remember the catharsis after many of his memorable runs when, whether for a tough-earned five yards or a 50-plus yard break away, he’d end up on the bench with an inhaler pumping into his mouth, trying to catch his breath. Bettis developed the health condition as a young teenager, growing up in Detroit, where the air above is often misted with soot and toxic metals from factory clusters. It didn’t stop him from becoming an outstanding football player both in high school and in close-by Notre Dame for college.

Since a pro, first with the St. Louis Rams and then finally with the Steelers, where he played for 13 years, Bettis amassed a spectacular career on the field, ranking fifth in NFL history for yards rushed and making the Pro Bowl six times before retiring after his 2005 season-capping Super Bowl win, earned in his native Detroit.

Off the field, he raised money and created special programming and camps for children with asthma, a breathing condition that’s grown worse for children over the decades, particularly for children of color. Last year, Bettis took a step beyond, when he teamed with the Environmental Protection Agency to produce a public service announcement in support of their new Mercury and Air Toxics rules [MATS], which will regulate the amount of pollution that large factories can emit. And it’s for this reason alone that Bettis ought to be inducted into the Hall of Fame–if not in Canton, then the Hall of Fame in the minds of those who cherish professional heroism in general.

After a meeting with EPA administrator Lisa Jackson, Bettis said, “I don’t think I’m courageous or anything. … She said I was courageous.”

Here’s why he is courageous. When Jackson thanked Bettis for his courage, she also explained to him that he was “going to meet some resistance.”

The Resistance: The Republican Party, not to mention Big Industry in general, which has profited handsomely for decades by not having to control the amount of particulate matter, lead, mercury, dioxides and other pollutants that diminish the quality of the air. These pollutions have harmed the lives of people who live near factories, and mostly without the offending companies paying a dime for the neurological, respiratory and economic damage they’ve caused in thousands of communities from Detroit to Pittsburgh and beyond.

The Republican Party, well funded with lobbying dollars from energy companies that operate the polluting facilities, have been the energy industry’s staunchest defenders, calling not only for a revocation of the MATS rules–House Republicans preemptively passed a bill blocking EPA’s move–but often calling for the shuttering of EPA itself.

The rivalry between EPA and Big Industry is deeper and much more costlier than the most hostile rivalry between any two NFL teams. And Bettis has marched right into the middle of it, despite the fact that companies could pull advertising from the NFL games in which Bettis is a commentator (some have already waged their own anti-MATS commercial campaigns during football games), and despite the fact that he’s trying to raise money for his The Bus Stops Here Foundation, which helps children with asthma. That’s to say nothing of his many endorsement deals, which often scare athletes away from politics of any sort.

Bettis could have taken an easier road, or in NFL terms, picked a weaker schedule. He didn’t need to team with EPA–probably the most electric political football of all federal departments and agencies right now–to continue his advocacy around asthma. He had already been doing so for years without them. He also could have waited until after 2012, side-stepping an election year when every conceivable opponent will be blitzing EPA on every play until November. Keep in mind that Bettis’s work with EPA doesn’t amount to a mere YouTube video. He’s also traveled with EPA officials and the Clean Air Council to meet with Congress members, urging them to support the new stricter mercury rules.

But Bettis understands that the stakes are highest for the kids suffering, and dying, from asthma as well. As he told Sen. Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, “This needs to happen sooner than later. … It’s pretty simple. Everybody’s health is at stake.”

Asthma has been a growing problem for children in general, but for children of color it’s more severe, affecting kids who grew up in the ghettos of Detroit, as Bettis did, and children growing up in the White House–President Obama’s daughter Malia suffers from asthma, a condition she’s carried since living in the well-to-do Hyde Park neighborhood of Southside Chicago.

For African American children, the death rate from asthma was seven times higher than that of white children from 2003 to 2005, Bettis’s final three years in the league. African-American children have a 80 percent higher prevalence of asthma than white children. The death rate for Puerto Rican children was 400 percent higher than for whites in 2003. And while Asian-American children have lower asthma rates than white children, they died from it at a 30 percent higher rate than white children.

EPA’s new MATS rules address the kind of pollution that can lead to asthma and other health disorders by requiring coal-powered power plants, incinerators, boilers and other electricity generating facilities to upgrade themselves with equipment that’s called “Utility Maximum Achievable Control Technology,” or UMACT. Along with targeting mercury, which has been linked not only to asthma but also nervous system damage and early development disorders, the rules also aim to control pollutants such as cyanide, lead, acid gas and arsenic, which are linked to similar problems and can cause cancer. EPA anticipates that its new safeguards will prevent 130,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and lead to 6,300 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children each year. They will also drop premature deaths by as many as 11,000 per year, and 4,700 less heart attacks a year.

The new standards have the additional economic benefits of creating thousands of new short- and long-term jobs for construction workers, who will be needed to help facilities comply. (They have three years to upgrade, with the extension of an additional year if the official deadline is too early to meet.) So you’d think these are rules we could all comfortably live with–you’d think. But Sen. Jim Inhofe, ranking Republican on the Environment and Public Works committee, has vowed to overturn them, saying they are “a thinly veiled electricity tax that continues the Obama administration’s war on affordable energy and is the latest in an unprecedented barrage of regulations that make up EPA’s job-killing regulatory agenda.”

Bettis’s position on mercury and toxic air standards is pro-life, but you wouldn’t know it since he doesn’t get the kind of press that Tim Tebow does for his version of pro-life activism. Advocating on behalf of kids with health problems shouldn’t be branded as political, but given the current climate, there’s no way to escape the label. In that context, he’s joined a very tiny pool of NFL “greats” who’ve taken up political causes. Hall of Famers like Jim Brown and Reggie White also took up political causes in their post-NFL years, but both had their own problems–Brown with domestic violence, and White’s own political positions mirrored Tebow’s.

Looking at someone like Muhammad Ali, who’s not without his own personal problems, you find someone whose greatness was achieved not just because of his boxing titles, but because of the positions he took on racism and war. Both of those issues were widely controversial during the 1960s. Making the air cleaner for children to breath and live with shouldn’t be viewed with the same level of controversy. But the political reality has determined otherwise. Bettis hasn’t shied away, which is why he deserves to be ranked with the greatest.

“Our Lakota people oppose this pipeline because of the potential contamination of the surface water and of the Oglala aquifer,” Deb White Plume, a Lakota activist, told Colorlines.com last fall. “We have thousands of ancient and historical cultural resources that would be destroyed across our treaty lands.”

Statement by the President on the Keystone XL Pipeline:

Earlier today, I received the Secretary of State’s recommendation on the pending application for the construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. As the State Department made clear last month, the rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by Congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline’s impact, especially the health and safety of the American people, as well as our environment. As a result, the Secretary of State has recommended that the application be denied. And after reviewing the State Department’s report, I agree.

This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the State Department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people. I’m disappointed that Republicans in Congress forced this decision, but it does not change my Administration’s commitment to American-made energy that creates jobs and reduces our dependence on oil. Under my Administration, domestic oil and natural gas production is up, while imports of foreign oil are down. In the months ahead, we will continue to look for new ways to partner with the oil and gas industry to increase our energy security -including the potential development of an oil pipeline from Cushing, Oklahoma to the Gulf of Mexico – even as we set higher efficiency standards for cars and trucks and invest in alternatives like biofuels and natural gas. And we will do so in a way that benefits American workers and businesses without risking the health and safety of the American people and the environment.

Gwai Boonkeut suffers from severe heart disease. He doesn’t smoke, has no family history of diabetes or heart problems, and he’s in his mid 50s — about 10 years younger than the average age for men who suffer from their first heart attack. A doctor told Boonkeut that his heart operated at a third of the capacity of a normal heart. Boonkeut, who supports his family by working as a school janitor, had to cut back his hours because of his health.

Boonkeut moved his family to Richmond, California in 1980 from Laos to escape the violence of the Vietnam War, where he lost his mother, two brothers, and a niece.  However, life in Richmond wasn’t any better.  In 2004, his 15-year-old daughter Chan was mistakenly targeted by gang members and killed at the family’s front door. Boonkeut’s older son was caught up drug use.

The city is dominated by the Chevron corporation, which operates massive oil refineries, spewing hazardous toxins in the air. Boonkeut is a member of the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), a community based group advocating for the health and livelihoods of members such as Boonkeut.

Richmond’s residents, mostly black, Latino, and South Asian, suffer from higher rates of death from heart disease and cancer than surrounding communities, according to the documentary ”Unnatural Causes“ by the California Newsreel.  Children are hospitalized for asthma at twice the rate than surrounding counties.

Now, residents are teaming up with community groups like APEN to paint their own vision of a healthy, sustainable future.

The first step towards that vision occurred last week, with the launch of Oakland Solar Mosaic, a partnership between an eponymous community solar company and the Ella Baker Center. Their pilot project was a community owned solar installation atop a neighborhood center, the Asian Resource Center, in Oakland’s Chinatown, which houses APEN and other community based organizations.  Community members each chipped in $100 to purchase a tile, a multitude of which created a mosaic.  

“We know what dirty energy does to our communities,” said Mari Rose Taruc, state organizing director for APEN. “We have members in Richmond at the fenceline of the Chevron refineries and members living in Chinatown near the 880 freeway; the consequences are huge for our communities.”

She added, “It’s going to take a lot to transition out of fossil fuels and harmful industrial practices, to a cleaner world that we can actually be a part of, in terms of beneficiaries, to get our folks to be part of the work it takes to do that.”

The panels will generate 28.8 kilowatts, saving the center over $300 monthly on their utility bill.  Any monies netted from the savings will first go towards repaying the community investors, then towards community ownership of the panels, and ultimately towards wealth the community can pocket.

That’s what distinguishes Solar Mosaic from other renewable energy projects by, say, Chevron or the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E), who have jumped onto the green bandwagon. The community, not a corporation, holds ownership and wealth.

This is energy democracy in action, according to Billy Parish, cofounder and president of Solar Mosaic. Parish’s past credentials include co-founding the Energy Action Coalition and supporting the Navajo green economy campaign of the Black Mesa Water Coalition, which his partner Wahleah Johns co-directed.  (I profiled her work with the Navajo green economy in this case study.)

“Energy is the largest industry in the history of human civilization; there’s an incredible amount of power controlled by a small number of people in fossil fuels and finance companies,” explained Parish. “We represent a very tiny example of a major shift that’s happening, where wealth and prosperity that the energy sector represents can be more democratically enjoyed.”

Parish added, “We hope soon that people will be able to move their money from investments in the stock market and derivatives to tangible clean energy assets, an emerging class that is based on safe energy, good for the world, and which provides a good financial return.”

For Mari Rose Taruc, the solar panels on her roof represent hope. “To know that it’s on the rooftop of our building is an inspiration that it’s also doable for homes, businesses, and other buildings.”

A hope so necessary for APEN’s members, like Gwai Boonkeut and his family.  

“Solar by itself is green only, especially if it’s only for rich people and we still have bad working conditions,” added Taruc.  “Our question is where are the APIs or immigrants in this movement?  We want to see models of ownership and business, where they honor the folks in the community, the 99 percent, a more decentralized and locally owned green economy.” 

In hopes that action would discourage President Barack Obama from permitting an extension to the Canadian Keystone pipeline — also known as the “Keystone XL” — a group of First Nations and American Indian activists protested in front of the White House on Friday.

Before being arrested, the protesters insisted that the extension — which will run from Alberta Canada to Nebraska, Oklahoma, and Texas — will harm ancestral homelands.

“Our Lakota people oppose this pipeline because of the potential contamination of the surface water and of the Oglala aquifer,” said Deb White Plume, a Lakota activist. “We have thousands of ancient and historical cultural resources that would be destroyed across our treaty lands.”

Even the New York Times’ editorial board came out against the pipeline, writing that it was concerned about oil spills along the route and carbon emissions. “[T]he extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does,” the board wrote last month.

The approval process for the Keystone XL was set in motion in September 2008, and while the National Energy Board of Canada approved it in 2010, 50 members of Congress have opposed it. Obama will have until the end of the year to decide whether to approve the extension.

In the meantime, those affected are speaking up. “Our First Nations in Alberta have been concerned of the lack of consultation of the pipelines and tar sands expansion,” Chief George Stanley, Cree Regional Chief of Alberta said at the protest. “President Obama can do what’s right. For the president to approve this pipeline is not in the national interest of U.S. or Canada.”

Six-years after Hurricane Katrina, former New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin says his biggest regret is that he didn’t call for a mandatory evacuation of the city sooner.

“When I called the mandatory [evacuation], we got about 95 to 96 percent of the people out of harm’s way, but it still wasn’t good enough,” he said, reflecting back with disapproval in a conversation with BET.com.

Nagin was one of the leading figures to receive criticism for the lack of preparedness in New Orleans when Katrina hit. He’s currently focusing on promoting a book titled “Katrina’s Secrets: Storms After the Storm,” which he says will shed more light on the decisions he made in the days before and after the storm.

“I want them to understand a lot better about how politics, race and class played a negative role in this disaster and, hopefully, we can learn from it and it won’t ever happen again in American cities and in any other city around the world,” he told BET.com.

Nagin also spoke about policies that are preventing a lot of New Orleans’ black population from coming back.

“There were open discussions about changing the social fabric of the city and very bold discussions about gentrification. I had to make a very tough decision to say that everybody had a right to return to the city of New Orleans and there was a heavy price I paid for that,” he says. I made the ‘chocolate city’ speech in response to messages out there that African-Americans weren’t welcome back to the city.”

You can read Nagin’s entire interview on BET.com and for more information on the housing struggles in New Orleans read Tram Nguyen’s “They Can’t Go Home Again” available in the Colorlines.com archives.