Over the weekend Lance Armstrong, seven time Tour De France winner, global hero, and face of the "Livestrong" charity/insane money making Nike brand, decided to stop fighting doping allegations levied against him by the USADA effectively stripping him of seven Tour De France titles and casting a shadow of a doubt on the legitimacy of his achievements. Now regardless of your opinion on all of this, seeing how now that Armstrong will no longer be cooperating with the constant USADA investigation he has been under since teammate Floyd Landis and the obvious fact he won seven straight titles in a sport where the top 21 riders in one of the Tour De France's he won were linked to doping were brought up. One has to see this point. Lance Armstrong has fought cancer and has served as inspiration to millions of people, who in turn have supported him through buying his Livestrong products and has allowed Armstrong to make himself millions of dollars. On the other hand Lance Armstrong's story of battling cancer, training to the point where he could win seven straight titles in a sport where such dominance is a once in a generation happening, and giving countless people a role model and inspiration in whatever tough times and personal struggles they were going through individually. Now people are going to be put through the tough decision of deciding how they now feel about a man who was once considered one of the greatest sports/human figures by 99 per cent of people who were aware of his achievements and mission.
I have always thought Lance Armstrong was taking performance enhancing drugs. It wasn't a very popular opinion and led to a lot of people being very displeased to hear my view, but as a skeptic it was very hard for me to believe a man who had cancer could win seven Tour De France titles in a sport where everyone is on the juice without having some sort of drug himself helping to level the playing field. Now that didn't mean I didn't think Lance Armstrong was a great individual and an amazing athlete and story for people to learn from, I just wasn't going to put the wool over my eyes and take a swan dive into the Kool-Aid, because I knew it would eventually be the set up for a fall.
And this is where my real point lies beyond how anyone feels personally about Armstrong and the whole maelstrom of controversy that has sparked constant internet debate on him, holding athletes or any human being on a moral pedestal is only going lead to bad things. Charles Barkley, one of my favorite athletes said it best in his famous Nike ad when he boldly declared "I am not a role model." Athletes are human beings, and often they are human beings who have to deal with an amount of temptation that the fans and people who adore them could not even begin to fathom. Sure, the work ethic that athletes should be admired and be used to serve as a teaching tool for anyone to learn from, but when you get into the grey area of letting any celebrity figure be the figurehead of a moral benchmark, you are in trouble. Take Kobe Bryant for example, his relentless work ethic and desire to win at all costs can be used as an example for anyone that hard work and drive to succeed is pivotal in success. But on the other hand he has had a divorce with his wife and has been caught in adulterous behaviour multiple times, even infamously being charged for sexual assault before charges were dropped in a case that at one point shattered public perception on him. Even Michael Jordan, the 1990's most famous athlete and spokesperson for nearly anything on the planet at the time, is considered by many to be a jerk and has countless stories from former teammates and fans who have felt the wrath of MJ's short fuse to back it up. MJ himself even stands on shaky moral ground as he has a gambling problem that has often been well documented.
Even on the local sports scene Jordan Matechuk went through the whole fallen hero conundrum after his border incident in which he was caught with steroids. Sure many people can write him off also and label him a cheat or a fraud, but the man still worked hard to get where he is at and put countless hours in the gym and on the field to get into the CFL and the fact he landed a spot on another team afterwards is a testament to that.
That's the thing with all of these examples, what is the purpose of holding athletes and celebrities to a higher moral standard than we hold ourselves and everyday people? When did we as fans and as people become so high and mighty? If we as a society are going to dictate the morals of others, we should first see if we even remotely come close to the measuring stick we hold our heroes today. That is one of the problems with society that likely will never be changed, too quickly do we focus our attention to the pitfalls and low points of others, and turn a blind eye to our own moral transgressions and things in our lives that if we were in a similar position likely would be blown to an equal proportion if we were popular figures.
You can go ahead and point the fingers on top of your high horse all you want, just don't expect me to join in the false shock and offense you all take when your own morals get hurt by someone you have no relationship with. They are athletes, not role models.
