Big Mac Bites: Lance Armstrong’s Fort Worth visit shows his complicated legacy
One of the most influential people in modern sports took to the stage in Fort Worth on Friday night and received a warm hug. In that moment, no one cared Lance Armstrong repeatedly lied to everyone about what he did and how he did it.
Armstrong was in Ft. Worth to support his friend George Hincapie’s Gran Fondo race that took place on Saturday morning. On Friday night at Mellow Johnny’s bike shop at Clearfork, Armstrong joined Hincapie in front of a crowd of about 200 people to do a podcast, and to say thank you.
“I think we all understand what happened in Aug. of 2012,” Armstrong told the crowd, referring to the moment in time when he was stripped of his seven Tour titles for doping. “There weren’t a lot of people leaning in Oct. of 2015 and saying, ‘Lance, let’s open a bike shop right here along the Trinity River. We want to support you.’ It’s not lost on me that level of support and friendship that they showed.”
Maybe Armstrong has changed. The stories about his ego and personality before he was busted were often horrible, whereas today the Lance tales are benign and friendly.
After a nice back-and-forth with Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, he told the podcast and audience, “(Winning a race) comes down to weather and familiarity with that course.”
He forget to mention the best drugs money can buy, and then lying about it until Oprah Winfrey puts you on her couch.
Should we care that the man who inspired so many to fight cancer, and in the process created hope and opportunity, did so while lying and cheating like no other?
What is the statue of limitations for Lance Armstrong?
Forever.
Armstrong will always be an inspiration to cancer patients who summoned the courage to fight, and a disappointment to the millions who believed that his achievements were clean. A person can be both, because Lance Armstrong is both: An inspiring disappointment.
He is 47, his face a tad weathered, and the hair is beginning to gray. Fans greeted him like you’d expect: Fawning adulation. We can’t help it. We love fame. No matter the transgressions, we will forgive the person the moment we are around fame and popularity.
Ever since being exposed and coming clean in ‘12, Armstrong has been mostly quiet and invisible. He is damaged, but he sounds just as confident (arrogant?) as he did when “winning” those seven Tour De France championships. He remains America’s most popular cyclist, which is a major problem for the niche sport that grows as a recreation in this nation while it vanishes as a profession.
Armstrong is a fascinating figure; after he won his third straight Tour de France, I stopped believing he was clean. Even though Armstrong was at the top of the food chain, there was no way he could dominate that event in that era without a syringe.
To see him on Friday night, he cut a rather sad figure. He did not have to win to be beloved and revered, but he did not know that. Or care. Outside of the cycling community, Armstrong is another freak show pariah in American culture. Just another ego-maniac athlete caught cheating.
And yet he inspired millions to fight, and disappointed just as many who wanted to believe.
And here are the seven things you need to know to make your life better.
1. DFW has a playoff team
Once the Mavericks dealt virtually their entire starting lineup, their scant shot at the playoffs died. One game into the MLB season, and our Texas Rangers are playing out the string.
We do have hockey to save us all from having to spend quality time with our families. Hockey has not grabbed this town’s attention in more than a decade, primarily because there has been no postseason run to do it.
Dallas Stars’ GM Jim Nill’s job is saved as the team will make the playoffs, thanks to season-rescuing wins on the road at Winnipeg and Calgary earlier in the week.
“We are a confident group,” Stars captain Jamie Benn told me recently. “We do believe in our system. Confidence is a big thing. We’ve been confident in the past. Earlier in the year we were trying to figure out who we were and what we were. There was a stretch we found out, and we bought in to our identity.”
Their identity is goaltending and special teams. The Stars play the perfect game to win a playoff series or two.
2. A local icon is up for induction (again)
Much like former Dunbar boys’ basketball coach Robert Hughes before, we have another local legend who is due. Former Granbury girls’ basketball coach Leta Andrews is again a finalist for induction into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame; the class will be announced in Minneapolis during Final Four weekend.
The Basketball HOF is a bit of a mess, and too many people are in, but it does acknowledge all levels of the game, everywhere in the world, played by both genders.
Andrews, the winningest coach in the history of the game, should be in it.
Hughes went through a similar process, of repeatedly being nominated, before he was inducted two years ago.
3. LUKA > ZION
Duke forward Zion Williamson is the most captivating college basketball player since ... Christian Laettner? Patrick Ewing? Take your pick. Zion is the No. 1 pick in the draft.
I conducted an informal poll on Twitter asking fans whom they would rather have, Zion or Luka Doncic. The total tally was 82 percent in favor of ... The Luka. Completely agree. Zion is not going change basketball like a LeBron, but rather be a version of Rodney Rogers and Larry Johnson.
Luka will have a better pro career than Zion.
4. You could have lived in The Ballpark
In a long interview with former Texas Rangers team president Tom Schieffer about the Ballpark, he offered more anecdotes than I could include in one story. Schieffer is the man who oversaw the project’s design and completion back in ‘94, with future President George W. Bush.
“The only thing George liked about the Astrodome was that Judge Roy Hofheinz had an apartment in the stadium,” Schieffer said. “On those (Ballpark) towers, the architect said we have some space that we can make apartments. So we made lofts. It was a lot of fun, and George loved it. They were great; you could go to a game on Saturday night, go up to the apartments, wake up and you’re at the stadium for the game on Sunday.”
The Ballpark lofts were mostly used for team owners, executives, or friends of either. Former first lady Barbara Bush used them a few times, as did members of the Secret Service.
“After we sold the team (new owner) Tom Hicks really didn’t have any use for them,” Schieffer said. “He took them out but I loved them.”
5. Use ‘The Highwaymen’ to Google Bonnie and Clyde
Kevin Costner and Woody Harrelson have now taken their turn with the legend, myth and eternal exaggeration of fabled American hoods Bonnie and Clyde.
The new Netflix movie “The Highwaymen” chronicles the story not of the criminals but rather the two ex-Texas Rangers, Frank Hamer and Maney Gault, who tracked the infamous pair as they made their way robbing people through Texas and the Midwest in the 1930s. The couple once stayed at the Stockyards Hotel; Clyde later killed Grapevine Sheriff Malcolm Davis.
Hamer and Gault came through Fort Worth in their pursuit of Bonnie and Clyde.
A few pounds heavier, Costner bears resemblance in this role to the part that made him a star, as Elliott Ness in “The Untouchables.”
Much like that movie about the pursuit of Al Capone, “The Highwaymen” is not a documentary, nor does it glorify or celebrate Bonnie and Clyde. The movie is a compelling chase, and the finale is haunting.
Don’t accept the movie as fact, and if it inspires you to learn the specifics of Hamer and Gault, and the truth about the pop-culturalized crooks, and the heroes who caught them, all the better.
“It’s good story telling, and it got about half the facts right,” said former Star-Telegram reporter Jeff Guinn reporter, who wrote a book on Bonnie and Clyde, ‘Go Down Together.’ “So much of what Bonnie and Clyde did was embellished, and they were made popular in the 40s and 50s from true crime magazines; before those, they were not ‘Bonnie and Clyde.’ They were the ‘Barrow Gang,’ or ‘Clyde and Bonnie.’
“I do honor the concept of the film is not trying to glamorize Bonnie and Clyde, and that when Frank Hamer was on them, they were done. When a pro was on them, they were going to get got.”
6. The vote against expended NFL replay
Bengals owner Mike Brown would not welcome a sunrise, because it represents change. Brown is no fan of change, so of course he is the one owner who voted against the NFL expanding replay.
On this one, he’s right. Both Mike Brown, and his famous pioneering football father Paul, both fought video replay for the simple fact it disrupts the flow of the game. The NFL just made its game a bit longer.
The inclusion of some replay has improved the product, we have reached that point where the games are hitting neutral, thrown into reverse, and overloaded with start and stops.
Football, more than any other, has a penalty on virtually every play. Calls will be missed, and sometimes they are big ones that can cost a season.
These are games, and error on all parts are a part of them. Even with more replay, there will always be confusion, error and mistakes.
7. A bold prediction
The Cowboys traded a sixth-round draft pick to the Miami Dolphins for defensive end Robert Quinn, which tells you everything you need to know about Robert Quinn. He will never again duplicate the production he had when he was with the Rams, when he had 31 sacks from ‘12 to ‘14. Can he equal what Randy Gregory did in 2018 opposite DeMarcus Lawrence?
Last season, the suspension-friendly Gregory had six sacks and 25 tackles. While he likely sits for another suspension, if Quinn can match Gregory’s production, it’s a win trade.
He will.