Happy 2013, everyone! You’ve no doubt heard about the forthcoming “confession” that
Lance Armstrong has reportedly provided to Oprah. Like many others, I’ll DVR the Oprah’s Next Chapter program on the Oprah Winfrey Network (OWN) and zip through the
commercials to hear Armstrong’s assertions for myself. What you’ve probably heard far less about are
the details regarding the evidence that led USADA to taking Lance Armstrong’s
Tour de France titles and banning him from cycling for life. I won’t bore you with the details—you can get
the gist here—but what I can tell you is that the
amount of evidence can be described as nothing short of “mountainous.” So if Americans are so forgiving, why are so
many people “kicking him when he’s down?”
Maybe… just maybe… he deserves it?
Call it karma. Call it hater-ation. How about considering for a moment that it’s
warranted. No one likes a bully. And most people would agree that everyone is
entitled—although there are certainly limits—to the extent which one is able to
express repentance an obtain absolution.
There are limits though. For example, considered by some to be a bully
in his day, think about Pete Rose (aka “Charlie Hustle”).
Pete Rose, a switch
hitter, is the all-time Major League leader in hits (4,256), games played
(3,562), at-bats (14,053) and outs (10,328). He won three World Series rings, three batting
titles, one Most Valuable Player Award, two Gold Gloves, the Rookie of the Year
Award, and made 18 All-Star appearances—18!!!—at
an unequaled five different positions (2B, LF, RF, 3B & 1B). By any measure, Rose belongs in baseball’s hall
of fame(HOF); however, once it was clear that Pete Rose had gambled on
baseball while active as a coach—and even bet on his own team—the result was
definitely clear: (in Seinfeld Soup Nazi
voice) “No Hall of Fame for you!”
Banned for life by baseball’s commissioner Rose
is, and rightly so in my opinion.
Betting while an active member of MLB was reprehensible and affected the
integrity of the sport itself. I support that position and continue to feel
it weighs far more heavily that the simple notion that the baseball HOF is a
museum, and therefore he should be in there. Let the almanac people take care of tracking
the statistics. If integrity cannot be
the “floor” on which your HOF stands, then what’s the point? Here’s the thing: what Pete Rose did pales in
comparison to how Lance Armstrong damaged cycling.
Lance Armstrong was—and arguably,
still is—the “Tiger Woods” of his sport.
People watched the Tour de France just to see him ride and see how the
cyclist with the incredible cancer recovery story could endure pain and win
against able-bodied riders. Too good to
be true? Sure. But people like a feel good story and
following Lance’s success became a sport in much the same way of following the
count of Tiger’s major tournament wins.
Lance even donated money and was instrumental in raising money to
support LiveStrong, his cancer research foundation. Where the tale begins to crumble is that Lance’s
success was all built on not just a lie, but on a well-funded,
well-orchestrated doping program that he led (allegedly) such that the sport
with the most extensive drug testing program in the world could not detect
wrongdoing. Let me state that again: the
sport with the most extensive drug testing program in the world. Yes, cycling.
Despite being lampooned as having
mostly doped up riders, no other sport—not baseball, football, basketball,
hockey, tennis, golf, swimming/diving, gymnastics, or track & field—comes
close. Cycling has them all beat in terms
of extent to which they test (frequency), and the quality of testing by
comparing each cyclist’s test results against their individual established biological/cellular
baseline. No other sport is as
successful in identifying the cheaters, either, which is why the NFL is
reticent to go all out with testing for steroids because performance enhancing
drugs (PEDs) affect people’s opinion about the legitimacy of the game. Make no mistake, the NFL and other sports commissioners
are watching resolutely in how all this “truth” is affecting the popularity of
cycling. Still, if all Lance did was lie
about PEDs, that would be bad enough, but he went beyond that.
Armstrong used money, power, and
influence to dismantle and crush the credibility of anyone who questioned him—even
when they were under oath. And like
dopes people are—pun intended—many continued to buy Lance’s story. Maybe it was because people want to believe
that Lance was helping cancer patients for all the right reasons. Or maybe people had their collective heads in
the sand thinking the end justified the means.
I believe it’s a combination of those factors and the fact that most
people don’t understand the commerce of cycling. Unlike other sports, cyclists typically do
not make millions of dollars. Don’t get
me wrong, they make a good living riding a bike, but few people understand how
cyclists make money. It’s actually
pretty simple.
Think about a cyclist in the same
manner as you see a race car driver. Like
race drivers, cyclists must have sponsors for their teams to fund seasonal campaigns. In return, the sponsors get advertising space
on the uniforms and additional visibility—read: media coverage—when their rider
wins. When your livelihood is based upon
performance and perception, even small influences can mean the difference
between getting a sponsor and effectively being ostracized from the sport. To wit, any time some witnessed and
identified Armstrong as a PED user--usually, these were his fellow riders—he
denigrated them to the point where they couldn’t get sponsors. And he was ruthless and vicious in how he did
it.
So Lance cheated. So what?
So he lied to protect himself and
his foundation. So what?
So he disparaged other riders who
might cripple his empire. So what? Why do you care?
What I have the most distaste for
is two-fold:
1.
I resent the
fact that Armstrong used LiveStrong as a shield to cover his PED machinations
and further extend his own personal pursuit of sponsors who bought into his
demigod status that transcended the sport.
And if you think “transcending the sport” is an understatement, ask
yourself:
·
How many bike races—not including Olympics or
fringe sports (e.g. XGames)—have you watched in the last 20 years that didn’t
include Lance Armstrong (if any)?
·
Assuming you don’t following cycling in hard
core fashion, can you even name a contemporary cyclist other than perhaps Greg
LeMond or Miguel Indurain?--*Note:
LeMond and Indurain won 3 and 5 tours, respectively. Neither has won the big tour since 1995.
·
How many times have you seen or heard about
Lance outside of race events in the media (e.g. Entertainment shows, news,
etc.) vs. any other rider (e.g., who?)?
2.
I’m so incensed by this notion that pro athletes
really don’t “get it.” Even the ones who
never really needed PEDs—read: Bonds, Sosa, Clemmons—the fact that they took
those drugs influences what kids do and has a trickle-down effect on college and
high school students. To say nothing of
intramural sports athletes.
For the record, my final point in all this is not to
convince you to hate Lance Armstrong.
Quite the contrary, despite all the facts, he still comes across as an
everyman (a la Peyton Manning) to me.
Albeit one that has flaws, Lance is somehow still marginally believable. Perhaps that’s just the image he wants us to
see. Perhaps his current “I’m sorry”
tour he’s embarking on is, as many in the websphere—including yours truly—suspect,
is not genuine remorse, but more about covering his ass from all of the
lawsuits that may be forthcoming. Fact
is, he’s going to have to give much of the ill-gotten gains back. It’s one thing to be apologetic from bonafide
regret. It’s quite another to feign
sorrow because you got caught.
Listening to ESPN Radio this morning, I couldn’t help but
listen to broadcaster Stuart Scott’s story in which Lance reached out to him personally
when Stuart was diagnosed with cancer.
Stuart cited that Lance gave him the phone number of executive director
at LiveStrong and told him, “If you need anything, I’m here for you.” Blah, blah, blah. I take nothing away from Lance’s compassion
for Stuart Scott, but trust me when I tell you he’s not providing the executive director’s
number to every person he meets who is so diagnosed. Millions of people either know someone or are
affected directly by this disease. For
the record, I lost two grandparents and my birth father to cancer, so I’m
sensitive to the impact Armstrong has made on the cancer research front. There are plenty of other organizations
that do equally great work and are worthy of your time and donations—Susan G. Komen
foundation (http://ww5.komen.org ), National Marrow donor program (www.marrow.org
), and Love-Hope-Strength (http://lovehopestrength.org
) among them. In the final
analysis, Lance’s charity work does not excuse the plethora of decisions he’s
made purely for personal gain.
Karma is a witch, Lance…which is why there’s no coming back
from the deep, dark hole you’re in. You’d
have done everyone a bigger favor by just disappearing. Instead, you chose the “let’s see how I can
rehab my image” route—most likely by following the advice of one of those parasite
image counselors. Like people who yell “fire”
in a movie theatre, you have the freedom of speech to say what you think you
need to say. And like those same people,
you need to be prepared to face the consequences.
Break a leg, dude…no really.
‘Nough Said,
+THINKER
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