Former Pro Ball Player & Humanitarian Roberto Clemente, Jr. to Speak at Symposium
Former professional ball player and sports humanitarian Robert Clemente, Jr., will speak on the global impact his father, the legendary Robert Clemente, had on his time in baseball and on the world at the Westminster College Symposium on Global Sport being held September 17-18 on the campus of Westminster College.
He will close the Symposium, Wednesday, September 18, from 12:45 p.m.-1:45 p.m. in Champ Auditorium with the topic “Sport and Global Humanitarianism: Roberto Clemente and His Global Impact in Our Time.”
Symposium attendees will have the opportunity to interact in a “One on One with Roberto Clemente, Jr.” earlier in the day from 10:15 a.m. to 11:15 a.m. in Room 239 of the Coulter Science Center on campus.
Both of Clemente, Jr.’s sessions are free and open to the public and the media.
His father was the first Latin American player to connect 3,000 hits in Major League Baseball history and the first Latin American to enter the Baseball Hall of Fame. His triumphant career was tragically cut short when his plane crashed while trying to deliver humanitarian aid to Nicaragua earthquake victims. Clemente, Jr., was seven at the time and vowed to follow in his father’s footsteps in both professional baseball and humanitarian causes.
However, a series of injuries cut his professional baseball career short and he returned to Puerto Rico to help his mother in her quest to fulfill Roberto Clemente’s dream of opening the Roberto Clemente Sports City baseball complex where he served as Director of Baseball Operations and established the Reviving Baseball Inner Cities Program in 1992 aimed at helping at-risk young people to avoid the pitfalls of the streets through sports in San Juan.
In 1993, he established the Roberto Clemente Foundation in Pittsburgh to bring his baseball program to the young people of that city. Today the program has grown to encompass all of Puerto Rico and a chapter still is active in Pittsburgh.
From 1996 to 2007 he served as a baseball broadcaster for ESPN and became the first Latin talk show host on WFAN-AM.
Clemente, Jr., is currently a partner with the New Hydrating Product Power Ice and a partner with Zap 911 that will change the way 911 is utilized today.
He and the other members of his family are working closely with producers on a movie about his father, “Baseball’s Last Hero.”
Clemente, Jr., continues to ensure his father’s name lives on through his humanitarian efforts and inspires young people and adults alike with his great stories and motivational speeches he delivers across the country.
Every year Westminster College cancels classes for two days so the entire Westminster community can attend lectures, panel discussions and presentations by noted experts on one particular subject of global interest. The public and media are also invited to attend.
This year’s topic, “Global Sport: A Common Language in a Diverse World?” seeks to understand why global sport can be both a force for greatness and a cause for concern and how it impacts entire societies the world over.
“Sport mirrors the human condition,” says Dr. Kurt Jefferson, Director of the Westminster Symposium and the Center for Engaging the World. “How a culture views sport says a great deal about its values. That is why we are exploring the social, physiological, cultural, economic, political and historical aspects of global sport in this Symposium.”
