Why Am I Still Alive? Pt. 10: The First Time I Met Lance Armstrong.
(I occasionally joke that I am the only person on planet earth that worked for Jeff Skilling and Ken Lay of Enron AND raced on the same cycling team as Lance Armstrong - arguably the two greatest frauds perpetrated in modern mankind. However I never doped, and I never did any whitewash trades.)
It was the summer of 1990 and I was at the Olympic Training Center (OTC) in Colorado Springs for a training camp with the US national speedskating team. I was 21 years old and had just graduated from Stanford. At the same time, the US junior national cycling team was there also, training for the junior world championships, most of them were 16 to 18 years old. I knew a few of the young riders including my old friends Jessica Grieco and George Hincapie. There were also whispers of a new young rider with significant potential. His name was Lance Armstrong. We had not yet met.
It was not my first time living at the OTC - a couple of years prior, I had lived there for a summer while training with the USA cycling team for the junior world cycling championships to be held in Casablanca, Morocco. My roommate that summer was Rich Hincapie - brother of George Hincapie - a key player in Lance Armstrong’s 7 Tour victories years later. Just prior to moving into the OTC that first time I had traveled around the East coast to bike races with Rich Hincapie (17), George Hincapie (age 13), and Jessica Grieco (14) - all up-and-coming junior racers. I managed, that summer, to win 14 races in a row while racing on the 7-11 Junior Team under manager Jim Ochowicz. This was the same team that Lance later joined that morphed from 7-11 to Motorola to U.S. Postal Service to the Discovery Team.
Back to 1990: as our speedskating training camp was ending and just prior to the junior national team heading off to the world championships in England, I attended a house party near the OTC hosted by one of the young cyclists. George Hincapie was there along with Jessica Grieco and some of the other skaters and many of the other junior cyclists. I mostly hung out with Jessica.
However, midway through the party, there was an odd occurrence. A minion of Lance’s - a young cyclist perhaps 16 years old - approached me and said somewhat formally, “Lance Armstrong is outside, and would like to have a word with you.” The setup and language were like a scene out of a movie - who says such things? Lance was only 17 but had already assumed command of the junior ranks. At 21 years old I was a little annoyed, but also curious - his VO2 Max test days prior had already become legendary. I decided to accept this strange invitation and walked out the front door of the house.
Lance was waiting for me on the front porch, pacing back and forth. As I drew close he asked me if I would walk and talk with him. He was very serious despite being just 17. That feeling of a staged movie scene continued. I conquered my annoyance and said simply, “sure.”
We walked to the end of the driveway to the curb, and then he gestured at me to sit down. Again - why is he in charge? I decided to comply even though he remained standing. He paused looked up, and then finally turned to look at me. He then became very intense and proceeded to ask a series of targeted questions about Jessica Grieco.
Jessica was a 16-year-old cycling phenom who also happened to be a very attractive blond - if very young. He had that same now-famous, hawk-like stare. He started with an odd question, “Jessica Grieco - how did you ‘get’ her’?” Confused, I explained that we were just friends and that we were not romantically involved at all (I had to remind him that I was 21 and she was just 16).
He immediately followed up with a variation of that same strangely worded question, “Well, how can I ‘get’ her?” I was a bit confused and asked him to clarify. He responded almost bemused, “Well, I want her, so I need to know how to ‘get’ her.” He then asked me a series of very specific questions. “What kind of music does she like? What does she read? Does she wear perfume? What are her hobbies outside cycling? Is she smart? What’s her favorite subject in school?” and then again, “So, how can I get her?”
I tried to be helpful but found it all a little bit like a science project. I can remember, as we wrapped up, he said formally, “Thank you for taking the time to come out and speak to me,” and I was thinking, “you’re just a kid - why are you talking to me like you are the adult?” I laughed to myself as I returned to the party. I immediately warned Jessica that a stalker was after her - but in a lighthearted way. Later I saw him talking to Jessica with some of the same intensity – though at least he did bother to smile and laugh. And no, she never did date him.
Postscript: Lance eventually went on to win the world championships at age 21, then almost lose his life to cancer only to return to win 7 Tours de France and become a worldwide icon and hero. He was then subsequently stripped of all his titles for doping. Perhaps worse, was how he won - by cheating, bullying, doubling down on his lies, aggressively going after those that began to question him, berating and even threatening those that stood in his path even while being the biggest most professional doper of them all.
He struck out at my teammate Frankie Andreu, called his wife Betsy a “fat bitch” and attempted to physically and psychologically intimidate his former teammates including Floyd Landis and Tyler Hamilton until he finally capitulated, with very little remorse, to Oprah, bemoaning the $150 million dollars he had lost. The best documentation of this fraud was by Tyler Hamilton and my friend and author Daniel Coyle in “The Secret Race”. (Dan was a contributor to my last book “Design for Strengths” and also wrote “The Talent Code” and “The Culture Code.”)
Not that he would ever read this or hear my advice, but I do have some for Lance. Even now, no matter where he goes, there are backstabbers in the room, and a constant feeling of judgment, and gloom. No day probably goes by where someone isn’t casting him a sidelong glance or directly confronting him as a liar, a thief, a cheater. Consider this - for what amount of money would you trade your honor and integrity to have to live like that? For me, there is no amount of money that would make that kind of life worth it. Here is what you should do Lance. Give every single penny you have to the American Cancer Society (roughly $50 million). Apologize profusely. Commit your life to good. Live in a trailer down by the river. Be poor for 6 months. Be an example for truth. America LOVES the underdog and those who fully acknowledge their failures. Use that innovative mind to find new cures, and new ways to solve cancer. I’ll bet you’d be worth 6 figures per talk on the speaking circuit after that and could regain your name, and at least a part of your fortune. More importantly, you could regain your integrity and pride. And you would finally be free.