The more difficult parts of this story to reconcile are his positive contributions to fighting cancer and his trampling of so many innocent people along the way. Let’s start with Live Strong.
Live Strong has raised somewhere around $500M for cancer research, education, and treatment. Stop right there and it’s hard to argue against that being a positive outcome. Unfortunately stopping there is ignoring a huge component of the story. That money was raised largely on lies, you should be thinking of another high profile example now. The name Greg Mortenson, the book 3 Cups of Tea, and the Central Asia Institute should be coming to mind. Greg Mortenson also did a tremendously positive thing, in his case building schools and educating girls in some of the most remote parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. But he did it largely with proceeds of selling a story that was not true. Does the end justify the means? I’m not sure it does. If Lance was a one time Tour winner would people have lined up to give money to his charity? No. If he admitted to doping would people who have given those dollars still given to Live Strong? In many cases no. Perhaps some of the money would have gone to the same cause through a different organization like the Jimmy V foundation, but there is some portion that at best would have gone to an unrelated cause or no cause at all. I still think Greg Mortenson did a great thing and don’t feel that way about Lance. The distinction is the negative collateral impact of their lies and denials.
The hardest part for me is the people Lance and his teams methodically worked to destroy during his years of denials. I heard a couple examples this morning on the radio, and it’s not dirtbags like Floyd Landis. It is hard working normal people like a message therapist for the USPS team who he destroyed in England where slander laws favor the famous. It is the two nurses who said they witnessed him admit to a doctor while he was receiving cancer treatment that he had doped and he sued and threatened. Does $500M to charity justify ruining the lives of everyday people? I don’t think so. To my knowledge Greg Mortenson’s lies only served to advance his mission and enrich himself. I don’t believe there was the collateral destruction of people’s lives along the way. And that is the distinction I make between these two stories.
This last piece is a popular topic on the big screen because it creates such divisive opinions and obviously from real life examples the drama factor is high. Anyone seen Indecent Proposal? It’s a bit off the current topic, but not too far. More relevant would be some of my favorite movies including A Few Good Men, Swordfish, and Shooter. Does the death of Private Santiago improving security of Americans justify his death? We want Jack Nicholson on that wall, we need him on that wall! For those that haven’t seen Swordfish there is a scene on a bus where John Travolta and Hugh Jackman are discussing whether the loss of innocent lives is justified by being able to advance a cause. Is 1 innocent life justifiable, how about 2, 5, 25, 100, 1,000 lives? You can find a similar scene in the movie Shooter between Mark Wahlberg Ned Beatty, and Danny Glover where they debate about the justification of killing innocent people in a foreign village to bring a pipeline through their area that would provide tremendous economic support. Interestingly enough, these are all examples of a government’s action. Lance’s example is of a private citizen. But wait, he did ride for USPS! Okay, that’s a stretch and I digress.
I don’t want to trivialize this to a movie plot, rather to recognize how drawn our citizens are to such a topic. I guarantee you everyone in America has an opinion about Lance Armstrong this morning. My opinion: I don’t care that he cheated, I don’t care about cycling. But I don’t think he’s a great guy because he raised some money based on his cheating and lies and I think it is unconscionable to justify the destruction of some innocent people to raise some bucks for cancer.
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