Tyler Hamilton Training company is under way, would you want your kids coached by him?

Over on Facebook, Bike Pure asks: Tyler Hamilton Training company is under way, would you want your kids coached by him?

My thoughts: Geeze, holy insinuation of pure evil. Christ, the guy is entitled to make a living and he's not a child molester. If you're not going to allow him to work for his income, are you going to put him on the dole then? He's banned 8 years from holding any UCI/USACycling license, including a coaching one, can't utilize the Olympic Training Center, etc. What is it with the notion that once someone has been caught, sanctioned and served their suspension, they should be blackballed and blacklisted as if they were suspected Communists in 1950's McCarthy America and prevented from earning a living if it somehow involves a bicycle. By your implication, he shouldn't be allowed to work in a bike shop or be a bike messenger, either?

BESIDES, if you want to be pissed off at anyone, blame any PARENTS who would retain someone as their child's coach who you think is a bad influence.

At least Hamilton is out there trying to make a living - something not easy to do while battling clinical depression, let alone as an entrepreneur.

At the core the issue is that certain people believe that Hamilton must issue some David Millar-like apology before he can even be considered a legitimate human being entitled to be associated in any capacity, even an informal, unlicensed one, with competitive cycling. But just because he was convicted of doping doesn't mean that he has to proclaim his guilt - no matter how logical you would think that to be.

If he thinks he's innocent, or wants to continue to claim innocence even though he is guilty (if that's the case), then as distasteful as it is for certain people, you have to suck it up or get your government to pass a law mandating the kind of behavior you want to see Tyler forced to engage-in (public confession?).

Tyler got a second chance to be a UCI-licensed road professional. He blew that. But last time I checked, he wasn't advertising his services under the guise of the UCI, so why carp that he shouldn't be allowed to earn a living in the free market, and instead, why not educate parents about the dangers of doping so that they can include a chapter on the topic in the moral and ethical training of their children. Then they won't want to work with Tyler Hamilton or maybe they will because they'll engage in some difficult calculus that includes a variable on persecution.