01/15 (Lance) Quickie

I have pretty low expectations for what Lance told Oprah, except to the extent that he has outed himself as a liar, which bothers me a lot more than the cheating, which was endemic to the sport.

He built his entire brand on lies -- look, if anyone battling cancer took strength from Lance or the LiveStrong movement, I absolutely hope that happened. Thankfully, LiveStrong became way bigger than Lance Armstrong.

But Lance's lies hurt people -- how about the folks who tried to blow the whistle on him who he sought to destroy? How about the money he took from sponsors (and taxpayers)? How about the money he won in a libel case against a newspaper?

I buy into the theory that, more than anything, Lance is sorry he got caught. He is sorry his empire crashed around him. He is sorry that he lost his standing.

I will have to watch the Oprah interview -- again: low expectations -- but I doubt he is sorry that he engaged in a decade of lying about everything.

It is as close to a Quickie truism as we have: It is always the cover-up and rarely the crime.

More:

*USA TODAY Sports is doing a 30th anniversary of the All-USA high school football team, and what stands out more than anything is that the first-team QBs through the years... have been uniformly mediocre. When wrapping together HS, college and pro careers, the all-time All-USA QB was... Jeff George.

Seriously: I went over to our archives of the All-USA teams and looked for myself -- and it really was the best pick. (Frankly, Joe Mauer probably should have gotten it, given his "pro" success... albeit not in football.)

It is a testament to just how iffy high school recruiting is -- how dependent the player is on where they end up, who their coaches are, even what kind of system they played in high school. For what it's worth, the All-USA hoops picks were largely excellent, relative to how the players turned out in college and/or the NBA.

*With the exception of Colin Kaepernick, there is no more must-see athlete whose team is active in sports today than Kevin Durant.

*As discussed yesterday, I couldn't care less who is ranked No. 1 in college basketball -- all that matters is how you do in the NCAA Tournament. To that point, the newest No. 1, Louisville, sure looks like one of a handful of teams with a legit shot at winning it all. (My short list: L'ville, Duke, Florida, Kansas, Indiana and, possibly, VCU. Common factor? All are Top 10 in KenPom's Adjusted Defensive Efficiency rating.)

*Chargers hire Broncos O.C. Mike McCoy: Yeah, he did some interesting things with Tim Tebow last year, but the success of the Broncos' offense this year was Manning, not McCoy. But anything is better than Norv Turner at this point.

*How 'bout my Wizards?!

-- D.S.