In the wake of Lance Armstrong’s confession, Mark Radcliffe offers his son, Luke, some fatherly advice.
Dear Luke:
I don’t know you, I’ll probably never meet you, and I realize right now that, as a 13 year-old, you’re probably in the middle of a hectic and ridiculous year that is the 8th grade. But, in light of your dad’s confessions to Oprah Winfrey over the last two nights, I want to say the following things:
Thank you. Yes, thank you. Because it appears that you—and not any of the other countless reasons your father had to come clean—were the one to finally make him do it. Not the testimony of fellow cyclists, or the books of esteemed journalists, or the protests of good people like Greg LeMond, Betsy Andreu, or Emma O’Reilly. But you. When your dad realized that you were defending him, it was something he couldn’t allow in good conscience. We all watched Oprah, waiting for him to break down, and the only time he got there was when we heard him tell about how guilty he felt that you were defending him. So you did what no one else could.
Your father is a deeply flawed man, but he’s also a good man. 90% of what your father did each day was noble: he trained his ass off, he supported cancer victims and the research that would help them, and he set an example to others. It was a very small percentage of his time that he spent being a jerk—lying to the public, concealing his drug-use, threatening those who dared expose him, and self-righteously denying it to the media. He was only a pathologically offensive man a small percentage of the time.
You don’t have to be like him. You might not ever be a world-class athlete like your father, or a man the entire world reveres for your accomplishments, but you also don’t have to be a liar or bully like he was in his darkest moments. It’s not baked into your DNA. The competitive spirit might be there, but so is that need to support others that your father clearly had (and perhaps still does), where he went above and beyond the call of duty to help fellow cancer victims. Bank your life on that desire to support and serve. Not the need to win, conquer and vanquish. Take from your father that need to address and help the public. Not the need to destroy your competitors.
You also don’t have to hate him. Your dad did some bad things. You seem to be OK with it for now, but in time, as you develop your own personality and opinions, you might become more resentful. And that would be understandable; you’ve grown up beneath a very polarizing and complicated man, a man with a lot of enemies. But as much as you may come to judge his actions in time (as much of America is already doing), you can also choose to forgive him.
You can transcend him. Maybe not in terms of professional victories. Maybe not in terms of global popularity. Maybe not in terms of fundraising success. But perhaps in terms of maintaining your integrity. Maybe you’ll be a middle-ranked cyclist in your local clubs, or maybe you’ll just become a really good math teacher in Plano, Texas and most of the world will never hear any more of you, but those whose lives you touch will. If you live your life profoundly impacting others, you will transcend your father and the tangled web he wove. Your father didn’t let the sins of his absentee father define him. And you don’t have to let your father’s sins define you.
You can teach him how to be a better man. Age is not the ultimate determinant of wisdom; purity of spirit and purpose is. You might be a lot younger than your father, but you can still be a beacon of integrity to him. And to others. Don’t let your age convince you otherwise.
It’s unfair, but the world is watching you, Luke, and that’s a tough place to be. But know that you also have much more of our sympathy than does your father. So relax, and be yourself. And trust your own moral compass. Ignore the bright lights and shiny trophies that got the best of your dad. Focus instead on the smiles of the people he inspired. You don’t have to win 7 Tours de France to achieve that. You just have to care about the people on the sidelines.
Sincerely,
Mark Radcliffe
Photo: LM Otero/AP
About Mark Radcliffe
Very thoughtful and valuable for anyone with.a jerk for a parent;
Famous or not.
Thx, man. Hopefully I’ll actually get around to trying out this parenting thing myself one day. All I know is that it’s probably a lot harder than it looks…
“Your father is a deeply flawed man, but he’s also a good man.”
Lance Armstrong bullied whistle blowers with verbal attacks and fraudulent lawsuits. He publicly damaged people’s reputations through his bullying and deceit to protect himself.
Lance Armstrong cheated everyone competing legitimately against him when he was doping out of their chance for their legitimate effort to be recognized and rewarded. He cheated everyone who cheered him on out of their time and emotions and good will. He cheated everyone-including we taxpayers-out of millions of dollars paid for sponsorships, endorsements, speaking engagements, appearances, etc. He cheated the people he fraudulently sued out of millions of dollars. And he cheated his own family including his son.
Lance Armstrong habitually lied about his cheating for years. And it seems as though he may still be lying to protect himself from criminal charges: http://abcnews.go.com/US/lance-armstrong-lied-oprah-cover-crimes-investigators/story?id=18245484
If Lance Armstrong is what passes as a supposedly “good person”, we are desperately in need of raising the bar.
Kirsten is correct. He is not in any way a good person.
So Kristen, the letter was written to the son, not you. Every son deserves to know their father has some good qualities. This is not your forum, nor the forum to buzz kill this letter.
dklos,
It is one thing to say that someone has good qualities. It is another thing entirely to say that someone is a good person. if the author had only said the former, I wouldn’t be commenting.
I am free to say what I want, subject only to the whims of the website owner(s). If the owner(s) of this website doesn’t want me to post my comment, they are free to delete it and block me.
Yes, yes, yes, Kristen. As I clearly said, he’s a deeply flawed man. I’ve written about Lance’s sins at great length in my many other pieces on him. And so has the rest of the world. We’re covering extremely obvious territory at this point. And while I can quote you word-for-word the many horrible things he said about Greg Lemond, Betsy Andreu, Emma O’Reilly, David Walsh, Tyler Hamilton and others (all of whom were simply telling the truth about Lance), the fact remains, that when Lance wasn’t being a diabolical asshole, he did way more for the good of humanity than any of us reading this blog probably will. The $500 million raised for cancer, the countless people his racing inspired (which is still valid to some degree, since everyone else was doped to the gills, too), the personal visits/ phonecalls/ efforts he made to cancer patients, and the countless times he testified before congress to raise spending on cancer research–all I’m saying is (to his son), that this means there is plenty good within Lance. No one is all evil or all good, we’re all a mass of contradictions. And maybe that good is what Luke can focus on as he tries to get his head around his father’s complicated legacy.
1. The reason Armstrong could testify before Congress to get them to spend other people’s money without their voluntary consent on his preferred cause is because he had a fraudulently inflated reputation. J. Random Constituent does not have that kind of pull. We live in a ‘democracy’ where the rich and connected like Lance Armstrong have more power than anyone else, and he got his political power by cheating and lying.
2. The reason Armstrong could raise hundreds of millions of dollars for cancer is by trading on his fraudulent reputation. By basing his cancer empire on a fraudulent reputation that is now being flushed down the toilet, those funds are now in serious jeopardy as are all those who depended on them. Further, according to this article from Outside magazine, his “charitable” work was apparently profiting Armstrong handsomely both in terms of bolstering his flagging reputation and in terms of money (to the tune of millions of dollars) from his supposedly charitable work: http://www.outsideonline.com/outdoor-adventure/athletes/lance-armstrong/Its-Not-About-the-Lab-Rats.html?page=all Apparently even the Livestrong organization has a problem telling its donors the truth, raising money for Haiti under “earthquake relief” auspices that actually went to cover pre-earthquake commitments.
3. He still gets credit for being inspirational because everyone else was cheating, too? Seriously? He cheated inspirationally? I thought the bar was low before, but that kind of suggests that there simply isn’t a bar at all.
No, none of us is all good or all bad, but there is a difference between a generally good person who incidentally made a few mistakes along the way and a generally bad person who incidentally did a few good things along the way. Here is a good hint: if your supporters refer to you as a “diabolical asshole”, you’re doing it wrong. Very wrong.
I am glad Armstrong came clean(-ish) to his son, although if he is still lying as some evidence suggests, I don’t even give him credit for that. What I do hope that his son and any other child of bad people learns is that sometimes you need to completely jettison your parents’ (un)ethical systems and find ways to develop your own. As a child of two bad people who I haven’t spoken to in more years than I can count, I know that is a hard road and I feel deeply for the kid, but I do hope it is something he figures out sooner rather than later. The sooner he recognizes the difference between doing good in the world and doing bad in the world that incidentally had some positive effects, the better his life is going to be.
To help illustrate the apparently very confusing difference between a good person who incidentally makes a few mistakes and a bad person who incidentally does something good, I suggest folks reflect on the difference between a generally good person like Aaron Swartz and generally bad people like U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Heymann.
Good insight, Mark. Thanks for writing this. i wrote two blogs about Lance that you may want to read. Keep writing!
http://rodarters.wordpress.com/2012/08/31/character-doping-and-nakedness/
http://rodarters.wordpress.com/2013/01/20/lying-wrestling-and-the-limp-to-come/
Thx, Rod. Will check your pieces out. Something tells me we’ll be writing about this guy for years to come, one way or another…
I wish more people thought like you! Love and loving people is so important. Now a days we are so quick to judge and point fingers and we forget that folks like Lance are human beings with families. I hope your letter kindles and touches hearts of many, and more importantly, that it becomes an example of how, us human, should treat each other. Compassion goes a long way. Kudos to you!
None of the commentators KNOW Lance Armstrong! I’ll judge him on his future actions and amends, not just his past. Meantime I’ll hold my judgement as I’m imperfect too.