What a moron

dumbass
Originally uploaded by becklerg.

There are too many good quotes in this article to pick one: http://www.sacbee.com/content/sports/story/12491165p-13346916c.html

I think I'll cut and paste the whole thing for those of you with no account, but it may do weird things to the font:

Erase the face
Cyclist David Clinger confronts a painful ultimatum from his team: Lose the tattoo or forget about racing
By Blair Anthony Robertson -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 am PST Tuesday, March 1, 2005
When the Bay Area-based Webcor professional cycling team signed David Clinger to a contract late last year, team officials believed they were landing one of the most gifted road racers in North America, a powerhouse of a rider who would build upon the team's successes in 2004.
They got that - and then some.

When the 27-year-old Clinger showed up at the team's training camp recently, the former teammate of Lance Armstrong's and a one-time cycling wunderkind was sporting a face-and-scalp tattoo. Team officials were so startled, they took one look and sent Clinger packing.

"It's certainly outside what anybody's expectations would be," said Frank Scioscia, one of the team's managers. "People are scratching their heads. It's hard not to."


Concerned that the shocking tattoo, patterned after the Maori warriors of New Zealand, could bring negative attention to the team's numerous sponsors, Scioscia and other team officials eventually gave Clinger an ultimatum: Remove the tattoo or find another team.
The team's primary sponsor is Webcor Builders, which describes itself as one of the nation's leading general contractors. Smaller sponsors range from PowerBar and Nike Cycling to a number of building industry companies, according to the team's Web site.

"There have been sponsors who expressed that it doesn't quite fit with what they want to be associated with, but no one has raked us over the coals," Scioscia said.

Clinger was in Sacramento recently to be fitted for a new bicycle at the UC Davis Sports Performance Program. There, he created a buzz among several other cyclists, including amateur masters champion Peter Allen.

At the clinic, Allen was shaking his head and saying, "Why would somebody do something like that?" Only days later, the controversy erupted within the Webcor team.

Asked about his reaction, Allen said, "My concern was not so much as a cyclist but as a professional working in an industry. How's he going to go from cycling to blending into society and getting a real job?"

The tattoo hardly allows Clinger to blend in. While some might fancy the tribal symbols heavily inked on his skin, others might liken them to a tire tread plastered onto his face and neck.

Reached at his parents' house in Southern California, Clinger said he was still hoping to salvage his season, which was to begin in earnest in the next couple of weeks and last through the summer.

Against his fiancée's wishes, he decided to get the tattoo while in Argentina, where she is from. He paid $150, inspired by photos he saw in a book about Maori warriors. He conceded he knows little about the actual Maori tribe and has never visited the South Pacific, though he says he respects the Polynesian culture.

"I knew the team might not like it, but I went ahead and did it anyway," Clinger said. "I wouldn't think they would fire me."

Team officials haven't actually fired him, but Clinger said he has been told he will not race until he takes steps to have the tattoo removed. With laser treatments every few weeks, the process will be painful and expensive and could take many months to complete.

Clinger said it could cost as much as $10,000 to remove the ink from his face. He plans to grow his hair back to cover his scalp. He had the first laser procedure at a clinic near his parents' home. His mother, he said, is urging him to remove the tattoo.

During a 40-minute telephone interview, Clinger said he got the tattoo not so much for the appearance but for the acupuncture effect of the tattoo needles on his face, where his muscles were tense and needed to be loosened.

Clinger, who last year raced for the highly regarded Italian-based Domina Vacanze team, said, "I was having new experiences throughout the world. I read about this stuff in a book why they did it and what they did. Well, I didn't read it, but I saw the pictures. It's like anything else, if you want to do it, you do it no matter what."

He said the 20-hour, two-day procedure was painful but that it made him mentally tougher to handle the rigors of professional bike racing.

Vivid tattoos are nothing new to sports, especially in professional basketball, in which athletes such as Dennis Rodman and Allen Iverson sport elaborate tattoos for all to see.

Kim Forrest, who with her husband, "Wild Bill" Hill, have become known as the unofficial tattoo artists of the Kings, said she tries to talk people out of getting a facial tattoo, even if it means losing business.

"In our shop, there are certain tattoos we will not do. One of them is tattoos on the face," said Forrest, of Wild Bill's Tattoo in Roseville. "Most of the people who come in and want it done are younger, and we know that later on they are going to regret it."

Forrest added that facial tattoos are still very rare and that "we tell people all the time that we won't even hire someone with a tattoo on the face. We have a lot of housewives and professional people come into the shop, and I think a lot of them would be scared to get a tattoo from someone like that."

Clinger said he hadn't really considered how his facial tattoo would limit his options in the future. But he's willing to change if it means keeping his job as a bike racer.

Asked why he would get such a drastic tattoo and then agree to remove it so soon afterward, Clinger said: "I'm pretty mellow. I just hang out. I do what I do to get my bike racing done. ... It's the company that promotes this team, and if this is how they want to spend their money, then I will do what they want."

Emil Tanghetti, a Sacramento dermatologist who specializes in tattoo removal, said a large facial tattoo could take a year or more to remove and that the procedures are painful, akin to a rubber band snapping on the face five to 10 times per second.

Though he has not seen Clinger's tattoo, Tanghetti said the cyclist could serve as an example to youth - of what not to do.

"Sometimes, the way you feel at a particular time in your life is only there for a very short time," he said. "Sometimes, these things literally brand you."

Russell Hamby, a Sacramento-based pro who has raced against Clinger, said he understands why Webcor sought to distance itself from the tattoo. Hamby, whose team's main sponsors are Kodak Gallery and Sierra Nevada Brewing Co., can often be spotted training in Sacramento wearing the team's jersey and shorts.

He describes pro cyclists as "moving billboards" who have an image to uphold.

"If he wants to further his career as a pro cyclist, this was not the way to do it," Hamby said.

As for the Webcor cycling team, Clinger's fate is still undecided. Scioscia said Clinger may be allowed to race while going through the laser treatments, or he might be sidelined until the tattoo is gone from his face.

Clinger continues to train in Southern California, often riding for five to six hours at a time, turning heads wherever he pedals