Five months ago Lance Armstrong gave up his effort to
conceal his use of performance-enhancing drugs and confessed on Oprah.
I am still coming to terms with my disappointment. Not that it was a surprise. Lance should never have “consulted” with, or
had anything to do with, Michele Ferrari, the infamous “Doctor Dope.” When accused of doping his response was
always that he was the most tested
athlete in the world. Never the simple
statement, “I have never used performance-enhancing drugs.” I, like many others, hoped and feared in
equal measure.
But still. How
excited were we cycling enthusiasts during those Tours. We added cable to our TV package for the
month of July so we could get up at five AM and listen to the incomparable Phil
Liggett describe the drama of the stages.
Lance was a great story. And we
took a kind of pride in seeing our sport, cycle racing, minor league at best in
the US, rise to prominence in the American sports world.
So I’m left wondering about my lifelong desire to find
heroes to admire, models to aspire to be like.
Sports may or may not be a good place to look for them.
When I was seventeen my hero was the Marquis de Portago,
race car driver, bobsled racer, and dashing figure in the European social
world. When I was eighteen it was Jack
Kerouac. (I’ve never gone back to my
tattered paperback copy of “On The Road,” not wanting to experience the likely
disenchantment.) Then it was a handful
of professors in the Berkeley English department. I gradually learned that their admirable specialty
knowledge was imbedded in lives of petty grousing, envy and frustration,
struggles with areas of life where they weren’t that competent. Like all the rest of us, in other words.
What I admire today is a blend of three things: a talent, the development of that talent
through persistent hard work, and freedom from self-importance.
The reason we look to the sports world for models is that it
does present a series of individuals to the public in a way that lets us
evaluate them over time in all three of these ways.
My current hero is Roger Federer, though I’m not much of a
tennis fan. He was plonked at the French
Open yesterday, but gracious as usual to the winner of his match.
I hope he keeps winning.
I hope he doesn’t dope or have a string of mistresses. I’m hoping, but I know we live in a world of
clay feet.
