Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
December 11, 2008, Washington Post

Lance and Other Comeback Kids

Lance Armstrong has announced that he is hopping on his racing bike and making a comeback. Armstrong is the legendary cyclist who won the Tour de France, the grueling bike race that covers more than 2,200 miles through France, an amazing seven straight times, beginning in 1999.

Armstrong won the seven races after he almost died of cancer in 1996. So Armstrong knows something about comebacks.

Still, I'm not sure that even as great an athlete as Lance Armstrong can do this. After all, he is 37 years old. That's old for a world-class cyclist. And Armstrong has not competed in the Tour de France since 2005. Of course, as anyone who has ridden a bike knows: Once you learn to ride a bike, you never forget.

But sports comebacks are tricky. Even the greatest athletes sometimes fail.

Michael Jordan may be the greatest basketball player ever, but he's also proof that great athletes don't always make great comebacks. Jordan quit basketball in 1993 after winning three NBA championships to try professional baseball. He found out that hitting a curveball was harder than hitting a jump shot. So he returned to the Chicago Bulls, won three more NBA titles and retired again.

After Jordan's second retirement, he came back to play for the Washington Wizards. Jordan was not a big hit in his second comeback. The Wizards never came close to winning a championship.

The same thing happened when the Washington Redskins' three-time Super Bowl-winning coach, Joe Gibbs, tried to return to the game after retiring. Gibbs got the Redskins to the playoffs, but in the four years that he coached the team after his comeback, they had a regular-season record of only 30 wins and 34 losses.

Still, some athletes make incredible comebacks. Swimmer Dara Torres won three silver medals at age 41 in the 2008 Summer Olympics after taking several years off and having a baby. Hockey player Mario Lemieux battled back from cancer, like Armstrong, to win the National Hockey League's scoring title in 1993. Super Mario later retired but came back again and played well enough to be an All-Star.

Other great athletes simply choose to walk away from their sport. Jim Brown of the Cleveland Browns is perhaps the greatest running back in the history of the National Football League. Brown led the NFL in rushing yards eight of the nine seasons he played. In his last season, Brown ran for 1,544 yards and scored 21 touchdowns in 14 games. He was at the top of his sport. But Brown retired at age 29 after the 1965 season and never played again.

If Lance Armstrong can win an eighth Tour de France, that would be one of the greatest sports comebacks ever. It's a huge challenge, but Armstrong doesn't seem to mind challenges.

Fred Bowen writes KidsPost's sports opinion column and is an author of sports novels for kids. To listen to Fred Bowen talk about writing, go to http://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/library/bookcast.

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