Armstrong Next in Long Line of Fallen Heroes

On Thursday morning when America turns on Oprah they will hear the sad and disappointing news come from Lance Armstrong's mouth that he used PEDs during his magical, yet now fraudulent, domination of seven straight Tour de France titles. Though the news is disappointing, is it really that surprising? Can we as fans really be surprised by this news? To me, Armstrong is the next superstar in a long line who have let us down. Heroes who we held on a pedestal constantly let us down with their actions off the field or their actions of cheating. It's a disturbing cycle in American sports today.

How does a man who has apparently been doping for years vehemently deny it to the media over and over again? Sure, Armstrong is still a hero and an inspiration, but he is also a fraud, a liar, a cheater and a snake. He flat out lied for years and he led us on a trail of glory only to run us into a dead end like so many others we idolized.

Who can we trust in today's sports world? The baseball Hall of Fame voting was marred by the discussions of steroids and players we once held up as heroes such as Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa and Roger Clemens were left out because of their PED use. Sosa and Mark McGwire took us on a journey during the summer of '98 that was unlike any other. Nothing was more fun than watching those two bash home runs unfathomable distances day after day, but now we look back on that summer in disgust and view it as one big lie.

Manny Ramirez and David Ortiz were two of the main Idiots on the loveable 2004 Boston Red Sox World Series team and they helped the team beat the Curse of the Bambino. The two terrorized opposing pitching staffs with clutch home runs, but like McGwire and Sosa, that all seems like a fraud now. It's another positive memory that has been made negative by the findings later on.

It's not just cheating that turns us away. Tiger Woods let us down perhaps more than any other athlete when his life came crashing down on Thanksgiving weekend a few years ago. While athletes are free to do what they want with their personal lives, we love those who hold themselves to a higher moral standard. We thought that was Tiger Woods. The clean-cut, well-spoken, family man who collected major championships like a 10-year-old collects baseball cards no longer was the model athlete. He was a man with a dark, hidden private life and he became tabloid fodder. Again, we suddenly couldn't look back on those clutch putts with the same joy we once did. There was something different.

Let us not overlook the wrongdoings and downfall of the Penn State football program and Joe Paterno as well. The model program in State College went down in shambles when the news broke of Jerry Sandusky's child abuse scandal. Paterno was the perfect coach, but even he could not escape the blame and the scandal led to his firing and his records have vanished. Are those glory years at Penn State still viewed the same? It would be hard to ignore the once covered up sins.

And we look at all these examples of athletes letting us down and it makes you wonder why we choose to attack a guy like LeBron James. On this very blog we have criticized the man, but in the grand scheme of things what has he done wrong? If anything, LeBron is a ray of hope. He has no off-the-court incidents and we would love to keep that way. The same can be said for guys like Albert Pujols, Derek Jeter, Kevin Durant and Aaron Rodgers. They are our heroes who have never let us down.

So when Armstrong admits to years of doping he will just be the next man in a long line of athletes who have disappointed us with their actions. Is he still a symbol of hope and inspiration? Sure he is, but something tells me we won't look back on those Tour de France titles the same way we once did. Something tells me we won't ever look at the Livestrong brand the same way. But most importantly, something tells me he won't be the last of our heroes to let us down.