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WASHINGTON - There was clarity in Joey Cheek's athletic calling: Skate in a oval as fast as possible.

As the fastest man in the 500 meters, Cheek won gold at the 2006 Winter Olympics. And after he donated his winnings to a charity that helped children in disadvantaged countries play sports, he was hailed as the Olympic ideal and chosen to carry the U.S. flag in the Closing Ceremonies.

But Cheek -- a Greensboro native and Dudley High School alumnus -- soon found out that his impulse to do good outside the Olympic arena was a far murkier proposition.

Without explanation, Chinese officials revoked Cheek's visa on the eve of his departure for the 2008 Beijing Games, where he had planned to discuss the suffering in Sudan's war-torn region of Darfur. The U.S. Olympic Committee distanced itself from the three-time medalist, noting that Cheek wasn't part of its official delegation. And with the International Olympic Committee silent, Cheek was left to promote his cause from the Washington office of Team Darfur, a coalition of concerned athletes he helped organize in 2007.

Today, Cheek, 30, is a rising junior at Princeton, where he is majoring in economics, pursuing a minor in Chinese and increasingly fascinated by the country that did not welcome him. Cheek is hardly the first athlete to be celebrated for pushing the boundaries of human performance yet rebuked for pushing matters of conscience.

"Sports is a bigger business than ever," says Orin Starn, a cultural anthropologist at Duke. "And athletes preserve the viability of their brand by not saying anything controversial."

In Cheek's case, he doesn't regret his effort to advocate higher ideals against the Olympic backdrop. But he is of two minds about what the Beijing Games achieved. On one hand, he believes they showcased the best of China: the hospitality of its citizens and the efficiency of its government in erecting such breathtaking venues and massive infrastructure.

On the other, he believes they also revealed the government's intolerance of criticism and the IOC's willingness to capitulate on such fundamental principles as freedom of speech and assembly for fear of offending the host nation and alienating the multinational corporations that bankrolled the Games.

Regarding the achievements of Team Darfur, Cheek isn't certain how best to gauge results.

"Is success that we got people to hear more about it? Maybe," he muses. "Is success that there were fewer people killed because of the efforts we made? Maybe, maybe not. Sometimes you feel like the only thing that matters is if you have a billion dollars or a cruise missile."

Cheek said he was inspired to do something meaningful after winning bronze at the 2002 Salt Lake City Games and realizing that an Olympian's moment in the spotlight is brief and that medals, while tremendous honors, don't change anyone's life.

So he vowed to find a way to leverage that moment to achieve something lasting if he were to win a medal at the 2006 Games.

In the 1960s and '70s, some activist athletes pioneered change in their sport, such as Bill Russell, who spoke against racism in basketball; Curt Flood, whose lawsuit against Major League Baseball led to free agency; and Billie Jean King, who crusaded for equal pay in tennis.

Others used their fame to champion social and political causes -- most notably, Muhammad Ali, who opposed the Vietnam War, and Tommie Smith and John Carlos, who raised clenched fists in salute of civil rights atop the medal podium at the 1968 Olympics.

All paid a steep price, says Richard Lapchick, director of Central Florida's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sports.

Many sports fans, commentators and corporate sponsors would prefer the athletes keep their views to themselves.

But Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, regarded as an activist throughout his brilliant NBA career, has no use for the familiar mantra "Shut up and play."

"That has no validity," says Abdul-Jabbar, the NBA's career leading scorer. "That's like saying, 'Lawyers should just do their legal briefs and be quiet' or 'Accountants should just be quiet and do the numbers.' Where does it end? Who has the right? We are Americans, and we have more than our votes to make statements."

Abdul-Jabbar, 62, doesn't doubt that his outspokenness as a college and pro player cost him coaching jobs and endorsements later in life.

"Yes, I've paid the price. But I have a lot of credibility, also," says Abdul-Jabbar, who recently lobbied in Washington for music education in public school.

For athletes who tackle politically charged issues, the stakes are essentially the same today as they were 40 years ago -- only with more zeros attached.

"When athletes spoke out in the '60s, the dollars they lost were not the same dollars as today," Lapchick notes.

That's why most adopt an apolitical stance -- a tack NBA superstar Michael Jordan famously defended in the 1990s. Asked why he didn't endorse Charlotte's black mayor, Harvey Gantt, in his bid to unseat Jesse Helms R-N.C., in his home state's Senate race, Jordan said, "Republicans buy shoes, too."

Tiger Woods has been accused of being similarly invisible on race issues after unfavorable public reaction to an early Nike ad in which Woods noted that he was still barred from playing on some U.S. golf courses, asking, "Are you ready for me?"

Lapchick says he wishes more prominent athletes would raise their voices, if only because so many young people are watching.

"We're still not at that stage that athletes can speak out without fear of repercussions," he says.

These days, Cheek rarely laces up his ice skates. "I like to joke I have the body of a scholar now," he says.

It's partly the result of trying to catch up on all the frivolity he missed while training with the U.S. speedskating team.

During a recent visit to Washington, Cheek slipped quietly into the Team Darfur office to do a bit of work.

"You can't do everything you think is right, but I think everyone should fight for something," Cheek says.