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[RC] "Seabiscuit and Lance Armstrong: Schmaltz, cornpone ... and true" - Steph TeeterI read this article - and wanted to share it. So many of us in this sport have felt moments of awe at what our horses can do, and the pure joy of accomplishment through perseverance... and most of all been touched by a creature, or person, with Heart. Steph ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---- © 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer Posted on Mon, Jul. 28, 2003 Seabiscuit and Lance Armstrong: Schmaltz, cornpone . . . and true BY BILL LYON Knight Ridder Newspapers PHILADELPHIA - (KRT) - They wait, snorting and prancing in the starting gate, nostrils flared and eyes rolled, each one half a ton of coiled energy quivering to be loosed. And one of the jockeys looks down sneeringly at the racehorse named Seabiscuit and says to the man on the little horse's back: "Kinda small, isn't he?" And Seabiscuit's chauffeur smiles and replies: "He's gonna be a lot smaller in a minute." Wonderful line. Takes it place with the classics from sports movies. Like, for example, in "Major League, the catcher consoling the pitcher who has been roughed up and yielded a mammoth home run: "There's a lotta parks that ball wouldn't have been out of." "Yeah? Name one." "Yosemite." Or Charlie Sheen's reply when asked what was the last league he pitched in: "California penal." Seabiscuit does, indeed, become a disappearing dot on the horizon soon after the gates clang open. He was a runty little thing, undersized everywhere but inside his chest cavity. And the beat there was a booming chorus of kettle drums. First, there was a book about him, and now a movie, and it will strum on your heartstrings. There is some schmaltz and some cornpone, and you know what? Sometimes, what the world needs is some schmaltz and some cornpone. Sometimes, we get a little too jaded and a little too sophisticated for our own good. Sometimes, we permit skepticism and cynicism and doubt to hold sway. Sometimes, we lose our capacity to be surprised, to be enchanted. And of all that we let slip away, the one we miss the most is that of wonder. So the great gift of sports has always been to remind us of innocence not yet surrendered. The best thing our games give us is a transport back in time, back to when we were young and unburdened with care, even if the world wasn't, a time when all things seemed possible and it never occurred to us that it might be otherwise. And so, on Sunday, two days after the movie about the little horse with the big heart had opened, another whippet-lean racing creature, this one on two legs, took his place on the victory podium in Paris. Lance Armstrong, one tough Texan, and winner yet again of the Tour de France, was flanked by a German and a Kazak, the second- and third-place finishers, and what struck you was that even though their platforms were a step below Armstrong's, they looked to be as tall as he was. This great engine of power and speed is, like Seabiscuit, a little thing. Except, of course, for what is inside his chest cavity, too. Seabiscuit and Armstrong embody what we have always venerated and celebrated in sports - those who persevere, who never take the hint, who turn a deaf, unyielding ear to those who dismiss their chances as less than slim. Seabiscuit ran 40 races before he won. Lance Armstrong raced in four Tours de France - and didn't even finish three of them - before he won. Failure didn't dissuade them or discourage them. Seabiscuit endured injuries to leg and hoof, and each time overcame them. Armstrong, of course, beat the Big C. Stomped it flat, in fact, and now uses it to his advantage, thriving on the pain, talking about what he calls the will to suffer. And all the while, those who confront the Big C take from his example the inspiration to keep on keepin' on. They awake each morning and make this decision: Let's fight one more day. Seabiscuit was said to be at his best whenever he was alongside another horse and could look him in the eye. They swear he stared them down, broke their will. This Tour de France was, by every measure, the most harrowing of all for Armstrong. He suffered crashes, dehydration, a cold, and side effects from an antibiotic. All that served to do was strengthen his resolve. Over the last five Julys, he has pumped and pedaled, uphill and down, for more than 10,000 miles, and no one, or no thing, has run him down yet. Like Seabiscuit's, Lance Armstrong's story seems much too much. Schmaltz and cornpone and way too good to be true. Except for this: It is. --- © 2003, The Philadelphia Inquirer. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= http://www.endurance.net/ads/seabiscuit.html Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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