There’s Nothing Slow About Armstrong

Few people know Lance Armstrong in quite the way Sally Jenkins does.

Jenkins, now a Washington Post columnist, was the ghostwriter for Armstrong’s best-selling book.

“Lately, he likes to drive out to a place in the Texas hill country called Dead Man’s Hole, and jump off a 50-foot limestone cliff into a cold pool of mineral water,” Jenkins wrote as Armstrong, a cancer survivor, pursues his fifth consecutive Tour de France title.

“It’s his way of proving he’s really alive.”

A close friend once lectured Armstrong about taking stupid chances.

“Well, look,” Armstrong said. “Ain’t nobody killing me.”

And one more thing.

“I don’t want to die of cancer,” he told Jenkins. “Because it’s a slow death. And a slow death isn’t for me.”

Reality TV: John Tesh, the former “Entertainment Tonight” host, was less well known for his work on CBS broadcasts of the Tour de France from 1981 to ’87.

John Levesque of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer talked to Tesh about the low profile of the race on TV in the United States.

Said Tesh: “If we can make ‘Survivor’ and ‘Big Brother’ and ‘The Mole’ interesting on TV, we can certainly do it with the Tour.”

Trivia time: Which golfer -- Sandy Lyle, Ian Baker-Finch, Nick Price, or Bernhard Langer -- hasn’t won the British Open?

Training camp news: Things have changed a bit since Kansas City Chief assistant coach Carl Hairston was a rookie in 1976.

“There were always guys throwing firecrackers under your door, stuff like that,” Hairston told the Kansas City Star.

“During our day, a veteran could tell a rookie to take away his tray in the cafeteria. If somebody tried that now, the rookie would walk on by. He just might be making more money than you.”

A lot of bull: Rush Limbaugh, preparing for his NFL commentary gig on ESPN, repeated the old saw that football -- or your choice of sports -- is “a lot like life.”

Salon.com’s King Kaufman took offense.

“Football is nothing like life,” Kaufman wrote. “It’s organized and neat and rational. Everyone is either with you or against you and the boundaries are straight lines that are clearly marked....

“The only sport that’s like life is bullfighting, and only for the bull.”

Illegal driver talk: Amid speculation about which players Tiger Woods might have been referring to when he claimed illegal drivers are being used on the PGA Tour, at least one guy is not concerned.

“I don’t think he means me,” said Scott Verplank, who recently ranked 178th in driving distance.

“When they start testing, I can go to lunch.”

Trivia answer: Langer. Lyle won in 1985, Baker-Finch in 1991, and Price in 1994.

And finally: Columnist Bob Verdi in GolfWorld magazine on the PGA’s plans to begin voluntary testing of players’ drivers:

“If the PGA Tour really wants to be sure it finds nothing, the perfect hire would be Hans Blix, the United Nations gumshoe....”

Of course, it’s always possible there’s nothing to be found.