Lance Armstrong will be the center of Oprah’s attention tonight, which means he will at the center of the universe as we currently know it. I’ve heard and read a lot about how we should give him a break and not judge his cheating so harshly because he raised so much money for cancer research due to his celebrity. I don’t think I agree.
I could care less than less about the dirty cycling world; note I didn’t call it a sport because it’s not. To be a SPORT there has to be a ball or ball-equivalent and defense played, and cycling has neither. Anywho, this is really more about integrity.
What I would want kids to learn from Lance’s story is that it never pays to be out of integrity. You may gain from it in the short run, but it seems like it always come back to bite you in the butt. In the old days it was called;“what goes around comes around.” We don’t seem to remember or live by such platitudes anymore.
So I don’t care about how much money he raised; it’s not about that. That’s a distraction from the real issue of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. It’s about having an internal code of ethics and conduct that doesn’t sway with the winds of popularity or gain or fame. I saw a 4 hour documentary recently about the history of baseball by Ken Burns, and there was about an hour spent on the cheater Barry Bonds and not a word about Albert Pujols. That’s so out of whack with what’s important.
It’s not my job to judge Lance; I feel like that is God’s job, if there is a God. I don’t pretend to be superior or better than him; thus I don’t have the need to look down my nose at him or anyone else for that matter. Use his drama as a lesson to your children, one of which is that the end does NOT justify the means. Then turn off the boob tube and stop focusing on negative celebrities.
In general, I agree. However, I think Lance is a great example that no one is entirely bad or entirely good. We may judge him harshly for being a cheat and a liar and hope he’s never able to compete in cycling again. We may judge him kindly for supporting cancer research. We should also recognize our judgements mean nothing unless we vote with our dollars and the channel selector.
Also your cynical and amusing definition of sport is too limiting. According to the Free Online Dictionary,
sport (spôrt, sprt) n.
a. Physical activity that is governed by a set of rules or customs and often engaged in competitively.
b. A particular form of this activity.
Consider darts, shuffleboard, barrel racing, curling, equestrian jumping, downhill skiing, ski jumping.