Cyclist Chris Horner [RadioShack] is the kind of guy you’d want to kick back and share a beer with. Affectionately dubbed “the Redneck,” by Lance Armstrong, Chris is as down-to-earth as they come. But don’t let his laid-back nature fool you, Chris is one of the world’s foremost cyclists and recently snagged 10th place overall at the 2010 Tour de France. Not too shabby for a 38-year old dude who swears by a steady diet of hotdogs and hamburgers.

He’s an NBA superstar, and household name.
James’ age of 25 years, coupled with his unparalleled talent, makes him the most distinctive athlete of our era.
His sign-and-trade deal from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Miami Heat caught headlines recently, leaving a bad taste in the city of Cleveland’s mouth.
But it’s still hard not to respect his flair and athleticism

As of this writing (July 5, 2010) Lance Armstrong is back in the Tour de France. He’s got some unfinished business, having lost the race last year to former Astana teammate and rival Alberto Contator. Can Lance win the Tour an unprecedented 8th time? The jury is out.

“I would never ever bet against him,” says Bill Strickland, the editor at large of Bicycling Magazine and author of the recently released book Tour de Lance (Harmony Books). And Bill should know.

As I enter this new decade, I am surprised that I am looking and thinking about the future. For nearly all of the past decade, I literally withdrew from contact with friends of many years, having experienced an unexpected major setback whose ferocity sucked all of the usual resilience from my spirit. For that, I have paid a heavy price from which I may not fully recover.

My reawakening has been marked by hesitant and slow steps of outreach to those I abandoned by my failure to take charge of myself. Writing an occasional article is a part of my recovery process. I may never become the Grandma Moses of writing, but I still have a point of view on a lot of things, including, of course, the main focus of Femmefan: sports in most of its facets.

The Tiger episode has given me two different perspectives.
The first is this:
Tiger’s situation is, in some ways, a take-off of the Wizard of Oz.
He has created an imaginary wall of protection to protect himself from contact with the general masses. From behind that wall Tiger speaks.
Or does he? In reality, only a select few know anything about how or where Tiger is.

Growing old provides an occasional opportunity to reconnect with youngsters who are now adults with families and careers of their own. I’ve lucked out and have now reconnected with 2 such persons whose lives engaged mine decades ago.
The first was with Femmefan‘s creator (a story, perhaps, for another day), and the other with Josie Washington McQuay of the greater Philadelphia area.
Each followed a path of balancing the responsibilities of raising a family, maintaining a professional career and later found challenges and established new, but different, vistas for women in the arena of sports.