Yesterday I mentioned Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Hines Ward’s continuing commitment to helping bi-racial children in Korea and this week his efforts were featured by Sports Illustrated writer Peter King as well as being the NFL’s Good Guy of the Week:

For the third year in a row, the Hines Ward Helping Hands Foundation is hosting a group of bi-racial South Korean children (there are 11 this year, between 6 and 14) in Pittsburgh. The goal is to build confidence, self-esteem and a strong work ethic in the children, who are often looked down upon by some in their homeland who value racial purity.

Ward has found five families in Pittsburgh who play host to the kids for a week, and he eats dinner with them, takes them to a Steelers’ game and shows them the sights, like the Carnegie Science Center. Ward is the child of a black American serviceman and a Korean woman, and he moved to Georgia as a young child. His current effort stems from a visit he made to Korea as a hero after he was named the Super Bowl MVP three years ago, and a visit he made to a group home for bi-racial children without parents in their lives.

“They were kids left behind, either by servicemen or moms who couldn’t take the prejudice they felt in the society,” said Ward. “My mom was an outcast because she went outside her race to have a child. That’s one of the reasons she moved. When I was there [after the Super Bowl], everyone praised me for my accomplishments, but they shunned the kids. So I wanted to do something to let bi-racial kids know they can have positive lives.”

The great thing about this year’s visit, Ward said, is he’ll be able to give the kids one more example of bi-racial success — the president-elect of the United States, who was born to an African-American father from Kenya and a white mother from Kansas. “Some of these kids feel they have no purpose in life,” Ward said. “I’m not trying to be Martin Luther King. I’m just trying to tell them they can have great lives, and it’s important to get to the kids at an early age. The dropout rate for bi-racial kids in Korea is really high. I just let them know, ‘I’m different. It’s OK to be different.’ ”

That’s a little bit of a different view for a guy who’s public enemy No. 1 in towns like Baltimore and Cincinnati.  [CNNSI]