Our complicity in the rise and fall of Lance

There's nothing happy about Lance Armstrong's recent fall from grace, save the grim rare victory of fair, honest competition that has been long overdue in the professional sport of cycling. The world had little to cheer as it watched a beloved sports celebrity icon, who had inarguably leveraged his astronomic successes into valuable, charitable givebacks to the community at large, finally admit to cheating on a large scale.

Reactions were mixed, of course. Some still refuse to believe it. Some think that it doesn't matter. Some stuck with the good, old-fashioned “everybody does it” defense, familiar to any parent of a teenager in the past century or so. Some were glad to see Armstrong come clean but were skeptical and critical of his claims of having raced drug-free in his final two Tours de France, in 2009 and 2010. Some feel redemption. Others don't consider it a real apology (and, from my view, this last perspective seems to have the most merit).

To me, the most bemusing aspect of the overall reaction to Armstrong's downfall is the degree of surprise and instant condemnation. As if we were all astonished and appalled to discover that a man we'd once worshipped was a liar and a cheat, turning overnight into a pariah. As if the emperor had finally admitted to running around naked for a decade, and we all now suddenly recognize his latent moral inferiority. The unspoken, inherent premise of such a perspective is this: Lance Armstrong cheated and lied to gain fame and fortune. He has nobody to blame but himself. How could he stoop so low, how could he let us down like this?

To consider this bemusing, to question this banal and lazy perspective, is not to suggest that Armstrong isn't a heel, or to defend any of his choices. How to even begin defending an admitted liar and a cheat? A man who, for years, erected a phony facade of indignation, arrogance, and provocation? A man who was openly derisive and vindictive toward his whistle-blowing detractors? Litigious, even? Armstrong took it to the next level—there's little doubt that the man has some fundamental moral shortcomings, and it's not unfair to now question his sincerity.

But in the aftermath, two questions loom.

First, is it really fair to suggest that he is significantly less virtuous than us, his condemning public? Examining this question requires a personal appraisal outside the scope of any single blog entry or newspaper editorial. But consider this: how would you behave under the spotlight of professional sports, under enormous pressure to perform and produce results, in the high-stakes big-money world of organized athletics? If you'd been groomed for sports since high school and through the college “General Studies” cake-walk, and then thrust into the limelight with scant skills beyond catching a football or swinging a bat? If fame and vast fortunes were at stake? If you discovered that widespread adoration and worldwide celebrity were finally within reach? If you looked around to see the vast majority of your “colleagues” laughingly skating circles around the various drug- and fair-competition-related rules and regulations? Would you never be tempted to “level the playing field?”

Second, aside from how harshly you might choose to judge him, what was it that brought him so low, after flying so high? Although fairly breathtaking in scope, Lance's lies are neither unique nor the last of their kind. But it's fascinating to consider how somebody can, in plain sight, skate so far outside the bounds of what we consider acceptable behavior.

A full reckoning is impossible without first stepping back and assessing the modern-day adulation of organized athletics (a term I use loosely to comprise both the various professional leagues and the big-time NCAA racket). Fame and fortune generally rot everything they touch, and the world of sport is not immune—it may, in fact, be the most egregious example.

Where, in modern society, is there more opportunity for fame and fortune than in organized sports? Our basketball teams are embraced with joyously open arms. Our football teams are the main attraction in our homecoming parades. The World-Series-winning baseball team is invited to the White House for exercises in mutual admiration. Taxpayers subsidize sports arenas. Fans fawn over the athletes, treating them like celebrities, inflating their egos while subsidizing their lavish lifestyles through ticket sales, TV revenue, and merchandising.

Is it any wonder, then, that the athletes will do anything and everything to gain an advantage? What part of the feedback loop ever discourages cheating? The occasional flame-out of those unlucky enough to get caught? The risk of losing your millions in sponsorships? Nonsense—when you haven't made it yet, you have neither fame nor fortune to lose.

Armstrong, for example, stands to lose several million dollars in sponsorships. Why? Because Nike (among other corporate animals) now recognizes him as a liability, and no longer an asset. While your sympathy for Armstrong's financial plight probably stacks about as high as mine does, what does this tell us about our complicity in his rise and fall?

We created the high-stakes world of professional sports. We reward athletic performance more prominently than academic performance. We tolerate taxpayer investments in football arenas and baseball parks. We worship the successful athletes. We opt for Sports Illustrated (the People magazine of the sports world) instead of picking up the newspaper. We buy more Nike shoes and apparel when endorsed by people like Lance Armstrong, world-famous bicyclist. We buy more tickets, and tune in, when athletes like Barry Bonds and Mark McGwire threaten to shred long-standing records. We donate more money to charities like the Livestrong Foundation when endorsed by world-famous bicyclists. We point to successful athletes as paragons of virtue, as role models worth emulating.

And then we're shocked (shocked!) when we learn that some of these athletes are found cheating. Shock is soon followed by cardboard outrage, as we willfully continue to ignore our own subtle but consistent underwriting of their behavior.

Take it from one of the most revered coaches in the history of professional football (who popularized the words of a more obscure NCAA coach): Winning isn't everything; it's the only thing. This is the commonplace ethos of modern-day professional sports. We only seem to care about how they play the game when the audacity of the cheating makes it impossible to avoid seeing it. When Armstrong finally admitted to cheating and lying, we weren't angry at him for betraying us—we were angry at him for temporarily pulling us out of our stupor.

We'd much rather continue to watch the emperor prance around naked, thank you very much. So until we're willing to come to terms with our complicity, the Lance Armstrong scandal will simply fade into the distance in our rear view mirrors, another inductee into the growing American sports hall of shame. Next scandal, please.