Lance’s Best Defense: The Te’o Effect

The recent headlines that have stolen the countries attention have been Manti Te’o and the girlfriend that may have only ever existed in his head.  There have been stories from teammates, press releases from Notre Dame, an NFL player’s public testimony that she actually exists and an alleged friend of the fictionally deceased girl being interviewed on ESPN.  This interview took place over the phone I might add.  Wasn’t that Te’o’s big mistake, trusting the voice of a person he’d never seen?  ESPN should know better. 

With all of the sadness and disappointment coming from this story at numerous levels, there is one person who has likely welcomed this flurry of headlines coming out of the sports world like a warm invisibility cloak.  Lance Armstrong.  The fact that everyone in the free world knew Lance was guilty months, if not years before he hit Oprah’s couch made his story much less compelling.  The Te’o story isn’t just a sports story but one that has crossed over to the tabloids.  This has provided Lance with a bit of a smoke screen as he makes an admission that has been over a decade in the making.  On the other hand, had Te’o’s story never happened the only thing the sports world would have had to offer mainstream news would have been the NFL playoffs headlined by Ray Lewis’ impending retirement.  Lance’s story would have dwarfed that.  If Lance’s admission had been unexpected and hit the papers at the same time the Te’o story did this may be a much better scenario for Manti and the University.  The press would have found Lance’s story much more newsworthy. 

If Lance’s story would have come out by itself he would have had reporters rifling through his trash and camping out at his house to get a paparazzi style photo of him in a ball cap.  Although he is getting his share of attention, there is a lot of money being spent right now on forensic technologists in an effort to locate the source of the avatar Manti was “dating”.  Everyone knew Lance was doping, there’s no mystery there.  There are no more needles in his trash and no more EPO in his fridge.  Te’o’s girlfriend is a much more interesting train wreck to watch.  The Lance locomotive crashed a long time ago and has begun to rust over.  Te’o’s wreck still has metal pieces flying through the air and smoke billowing from the engine.  If I were a conspiracy theorist I would say that Lance may have constructed the entire Te’o story as some elaborate distraction to take the sting out of his admission but Lance wouldn't do that would he?

Lance has a lifetime ban from competitive sports that could be lowered if he helps investigators.  Should Lance be allowed to compete again?