You show me a hero and I show you a bum. —Pappy Boyington, WW II fighter ace
I was never a big Lance Armstrong fan. He smelled arrogant to me, and the implication that he "beat" cancer, while emotionally useful to many, always seemed intellectually dishonest to me.
But as someone who made a hero of Tiger Woods, another athlete who many others found aloof but who I once saw as a role model for living an intelligent, organized, focused, confident life—I'm not feeling like telling Armstrong fans, "I told you so."
Though my fascination with Woods the Person has waned, I still root for him to win tournaments, for the same reasons I always did: so I can bore the bejeepers out of my grandkids, the way people who saw Babe Ruth in his prime must have bored theirs.
But I've mostly stopped having dreams about meeting Woods and having heart-to-heart talks with him in which I offer him insights about his life that rock his world. (What? You have no dreams like that about anybody? I played a quiet round of golf with Barack Obama not too long ago, just me and him. We didn't talk politics, just golf. I won, and he was gracious about it. And the whole thing was better for you not having been there.)
With Armstrong, the letdown must be more severe, because his integrity is not the only thing in question; his actual achievements have been officially stripped away.
But such distinctions are only pedantic quibbles next to the power of our feelings for our heroes—feelings that overwhelm facts.
Our very mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and lovers all let us down at one point or another. And we still adore them. Why would it be different with our heroes?
So Lance Armstrong fans, as a Tiger Woods fan (and for that matter as a Kurt Vonnegut fan who found the recent biography true-sounding and crushing), I'll be the last to harangue you about your guy. And I reckon that you'll be less likely to harangue me about mine.
That Pappy Boyington quote above: I read that in his autobiography when I was in fifth grade. I understood what it meant.
And I rejected it.
Dopey as it will sound to some, I still do.
For me there’s a difference between Woods and Armstrong. Woods cheated on his wife, but I’m not aware of any suggestion that he cheated at the sport that brought him so many rewards. Armstrong, on the other hand, cheated at his sport (admittedly like so many of his competitors, but a hundred wrongs still don’t make a right). Yes, he has arguably done admirable work through his foundation etc, but none of that likely would have been possible without his success as a cyclist – success, we are now learning, it seems was achieved through a whole list of dubious practices and choices that defy any definition of integrity.
Some will inevitably feel the ends at least forgive the means, if not justify them. I’m not sure I can agree with that. At least I can still respect Woods as a golfer. Boyington was wrong – a hero isn’t necessarily a bum. But show me a hero and I’ll show you someone just as flawed as the rest of us, which means they don’t get a pass on earning my admiration any more than a bum does. I suppose it’s the flaw many of us share: we give up our respect to somebody too easily, and in a way I suppose that’s better than the alternative. But if we do that, then we shouldn’t be so surprised when our “heroes” fall. Ever since Achilles they’ve all had their flaws. You’d think we would have learned that by now. And you’d think more of them would have learned the benefits of following the example of a hero like Neil Armstrong: do your great thing, and then go on our way and quietly live your life before you screw it all up.
Tiger Woods was a sporting icon for me. What he did to his wife is morally questionable, but that doesn’t affect my image of him as a professional Golfer. He was always a sporting icon, and what he did shouldn’t change the sport perspective.
On the other hand, it seems Lance Armstrong’s success was based on cheating and deceiving not only his sport, but also millions of his fans. I contest the notion that Tiger Woods did no such thing, and no fan looked upto Tiger for the way he lived his life.
And it is surprising to see that the backlash against Tiger Woods was much more intense than the backlash, if any at all, against Lance Armstrong.
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Writing Boots: They told us so: Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, me and you
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Writing Boots: They told us so: Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, me and you
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Writing Boots: They told us so: Lance Armstrong, Tiger Woods, me and you