Hard to know what to think about Armstrong, when you step back a bit. He and his fellow imbibers have probably ruined professional cycling’s reputation for years to come. But Armstrong was the face of the sport, and he disgraced himself along with it. Cycling is the new professional wrestling. No one takes it seriously anymore.

On the other side, not sure we could ever count the number of people he inspired in some way with his cancer fight. How many people used his story to push themselves a little harder, hang on when they felt like giving up. Maybe hang on long enough to win their own cancer fight. Or maybe win their own personal fight of a different kind, in part because they were motivated to do it by learning about Lance Armstrong. Then there’s his LiveStrong foundation, and all the things they’ve accomplished.

How do we measure such things? He’s a bad guy who’s done a remarkable amount of good in the world. And a remarkable amount of bad in the world as well.

Personally, I don’t like Lance Armstrong anymore. He’s a fraud, and he’s a jerk, to put it mildly. But he’s a fraud and a jerk who has probably inspired more people than we’ll ever know about, before we learned of his fraud-ness and jerk-ness.

I don’t like him. But I’m not totally sure how to feel about that. So I guess I can not like him for that as well.