We will remember 2017 as much for what athletes strove to achieve off the field as for what they achieved on it. And that was no small bar to clear. New champions were crowned, notably the Houston Astros, who ended the second-longest World Series drought by winning the first in the franchise’s history, while old champions (the Patriots, the Warriors, the Lynx, the Penguins) solidified their places in the pantheon.Even in a year of sublime individual performances—Brady and KD, Deshaun and Fed, all of them considered for this award—athletes spoke loudest in their actions and words off the field. .This...