Quick Take on Lance Armstrong

It's happened to me over and over throughout my life. One day, I realized Hulk Hogan was larger than life--partly because he was filled with steroids and not just because he ate his vitamins and said his prayers the way he implored me to do as a child. One day, long before the steroids saga, I realized that Jose Canseco was an egotistical, self-entitled jerk. Decades later, I finally had to come to terms with the truth that Mark McGwire was a liar and a cheater.

Clearly, I did a bad job choosing my heroes and such is the case with Lance Armstrong.

By now, we all know the story. If you don't, here it is. I'd like to be able to say that it's easy for me to separate Armstrong the cyclist from Armstrong the activist, that I didn't really watch or care about cycling so his use of steroids to cheat his sport doesn't matter to me like McGwire's did. To a certain extent that's true. I don't follow cycling, but I'll admit to watching parts of the Tour de France just to root for Armstrong. The truth is that without his connection to sports, I would probably never have known--or cared--about him any more than countless other cancer-surviving activists.

It was the sports connection that hooked me. The man came back from the brink of death, reached the top of his sport and dominated it for nearly a decade. On top of that, he created the Livestrong Foundation, which has helped tens if not hundreds of thousands of people all over the world who are battling cancer.

That’s why whenever he was accused of doping, I supported him. He had never produced a positive test, after all. He was just the target of a witchhunt because the Europeans couldn’t stand the fact that an American was kicking their ass at their sport without using drugs.

Then the heat started getting turned up. But Armstrong still denied it. He went on any talk show, talked to any newspaper he could to proclaim his innocence…and he sued the hell out of anyone who dared say otherwise.

Then suddenly, just over a year ago, he announced that he would no longer fight any charges, effectively giving up the fight.

Last week speculation began that he will finally admit to doping tonight in a TV interview.

Since that time, I have been wrestling with the same question that so many other Armstrong supporters have been wrestling with: How do I reconcile Lance the cheater and the liar with the Lance whose foundation helped so many people?  People like my friend Nate.

If you've followed my on again-off again writing since the Myspace days, you may remember this blog about Nate.  Not surprisingly, Armstrong and the Livestrong Foundation were a major part of it.  A week from today, it'll be five years since Nate died.  As much as I want to disavow my love for Armstrong and pretend he's just another self-centered athlete, I find myself wondering if Nate would care very much about any of this. 

Would he care that the money Armstrong used to create the foundation that immeasurably helped him cope with and prepare for his final days was gained by cheating?  Would he care that the guy behind the foundation is in all likelihood a terrible person, even though that terrible person gave him hope and inspired him to fight for every extra day he could get to be with his family?

My guess is he wouldn't.

Some people do, and I get that.  If you do, I'm not about to try to get you off that point.  I'm not even sure I can disagree with you.  But I know that I will still wear my Livestrong gear and I will continue to support the foundation as I always have.  I support its message and its mission regardless of what becomes of its creator.  I'm sure on some level that makes me a hypocrite.  I'm sure that means on some level I condone what the guy did.

Maybe.

Maybe I just think that sometimes when we say some things are bigger than sports, we should actually mean it.