There was an awful lot that was good and commendable about last week's breakfast with Lance Armstrong at the Sheraton Hotel. And that is all to Steve Fleischmann's credit.
Two years ago, Steve, who runs an office-interiors business across from the old Olympic Hotel, was on a gurney being wheeled in for prostate surgery at the University of Washington Hospital, when he took a last look at his beautiful wife and vowed: "Honey, I'm gonna bring Lance Arm-strong to Seattle."
Steve had read the book.
Nowadays, first the doctor says the deadly word, "C-A-N-C-E-R," and then your friends give you Lance and Sally Jenkins' book, "It's Not About the Bike."
It's one of life's passages, like the birds-and-bees book your parents gave you when you turned 13, only this is a great read.
Last Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2005, survivor Steve Fleischmann looked out at the ballroom of the Sheraton Hotel into the faces of 1,100 people. It was so packed the fire marshal was counting heads.
This was Steve's dream. He'd gotten Lance (for $150,000), had a song written for him, filled over 30 tables himself. Even put a Douglas fir seedling on every chair.
It was a super job, and I don't think he should be blamed for those little round towers of omelet that stood up on our plates like they'd just slid out of an Alpo can. For a thousand bucks what do you expect, real food?
In the crowd were Gov. Dan Evans, Coach Weiss of the Sonics and the Pride of Seward Park - Kenny G.
A good film was shown on three big screens. Had ex-governor Dan in it and another survivor who'd just done an Ironman in Idaho. The president of the UW spoke. He's got good hair. We learned the amazing fact that before Dr. Lang at the University of Washington came up with a test for testicular cancer like Lance's, it was 90-percent fatal. Now it's 95-percent cured.
Now if only we could find such a test for prostate cancer, the second leading killer of men.
Standing ovation for Steve. Enter Lance. Another standing ovation.
Lance in the bright lights, wearing a sport coat and black T-shirt.
He sure looks like an American hero. Like Neil and Jack's successor.
The problem with making a movie about this boy's life is that it sounds like fiction. A teenage mom is working at Kentucky Fried Chicken in Dallas and going to school. At night she reads to him. For special occasions he gets a Slurpee.
And she instills in him the message: "Never give up."
He beats the world's deadliest disease, and it allows him to win the world's most demanding race seven times in a row. And now he's something akin to the Virgin Mary at Lourdes.
Q: Who plays him in the movie?
A: A 25-year-old James Caan, from Texas.
Lance began by announcing his foundation was giving the Hutch $1.7 million.
Now most people are vaguely aware of Lance's miracle story. But this room of mostly men who can drop a grand and not feel it have perhaps been too busy to notice that Lance is no dumb jock. He's sharp as a tack, self-educated far beyond a college degree, and a polished speaker with a wit honed by the likes of Robin Williams.
He tells us about his brain surgeon explaining to him that the procedure will be like carving a pumpkin. How lying in bed, after the operation, he told Coach Chris Carmichael, one of his blood brothers: "I couldn't be better. Really. This is the way I want it. Now it can only get better."
How only one cycling team left the door open to him, but "they were the Bad News Bears." And the rest is history.
And the future? "I need a new mission I can get a victory in. Cancer kills 1,500 a day; that's a 9/11 every two days. We have to build an army. We have to put pressure on the people who make the budget."
Steve has raised two million. "But," Lance says, "WE NEED BILLIONS."
On that famous bike ride with W, Lance asked for a billion. "It was a mistake," he said. "I should have asked for more."
Lance says this is the obligation of the cured.
Now for some reason at the breakfast, Lance's handlers - including the self-confessed micro-manager, Steve - wanted to protect him, so they strained audience questions through DJ Steve Raible, who has a real talent for spinning gold into straw. So the audience didn't really see Lance at his best.
Folks, Lance thrives on the heat. Throw him the damn fastball:
* The government will spend $5 billion on cancer research this year. We've spent $200 billion on Iraq. Since you were against the invasion, why - what was the deciding factor - did you vote for W? Longhorn loyalty? Tax breaks?
* And, if the amounts were reversed, with $200 billion put in the front lines against cancer, what kind of results might we expect?
Maybe Dec. 7 wasn't the time to ask this or the other big questions. Maybe real questions make people too uncomfortable.
But, you know, life is like cancer, you've got to recognize what's real before you can do anything about it.
After the breakfast, I told Governor Dan I've studied the presidency all my life and I can't think of anybody who has done as much damage to America as W.
"You know, I've been a Republican all my life," Evans replied. "And I agree with you."
Lance, there's also the responsibility of people who know better. To speak up.
Meanwhile, let's give Lance and Steve another standing ovation.
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