My book No More Christian Nice Guy alerted America that boys are falling behind in school and that this problem is a silent epidemic. Little did I know that within a few months after its release how some of the largest names in media would pick up this problem and run with it. But what I did predict was the radical feminist response, and how they would attempt to put this problem into "perspective."

Soon after Newsweek's recent cover story about the boy crisis in education came Salon.com's article "The campus crusade for guys." Then Rich Lowry, editor of National Review, weighed in with "Biology's Revenge." The Weekly Standard had its say as well. Among the most troubling statistics: 58 percent of first-year college students are female. Because male students are more likely to drop out, their share will shrink to 40 percent by graduation.

One of the main reasons for this crisis, wrote Newsweek, is the lack of father figures in the lives of too many drop-out boys. "An adolescent boy without a father figure is like an explorer without a map." Donald Miller, author of the bestselling Blue Like Jazz, writes about his difficult life without a father in his new release To Own a Dragon. He says the percentage of dropouts, youth suicides, homeless teenagers and young men in prison who come from fatherless homes is staggering. "It makes you wonder if just having a Dad around, just by being there, reading the paper in the morning and smoking cigars at poker with his friends and having him read to us a story at night, you and I were supposed to understand something, some idea God in heaven wanted to offer us as a gift."

Feminist Professor Peggy Drexler, author of the anti-father Raising Boys Without Men: How Maverick Moms Are Creating the Next Generation of Exceptional Men, claims that no such gift exists. Soon after Newsweek's article hit, she wrote, "I wonder what mothers like Lance Armstrong's make of such statements" that claim boys without a father figure are lost. "The assumption that 'masculine' qualities can be imparted only by men undermines the success of millions of mothers who are fully capable of raising thriving, emotionally healthy, masculine sons without a man around. Linda Armstrong raised Lance on her own and did quite well."

This is where Drexler, like the body of her work, hyper-extends and hyper-ventilates. I used to race bicycles, shaved legs and all, and I still might in the future if my schedule ever slows down (not likely). I've won a few as a low-level racer, yet my best race was when I took third. There's something about a road bike that makes me feel alive.

So I keep an eye on Lance and I'm amazed by his abilities, especially his cadence and lightness on the pedals as he flies up mountains. I'm also familiar with his background, apparently more so than Drexler. Young Lance Armstrong was not "emotionally healthy." He was, by his own admission, a lost and angry young jerk. Two trainers, Chris Charmichael and Johann Bruyneel, took him under their paternal wing and coaxed stellar talent out of his troubled body and soul. Eddy Merckx, perhaps the greatest cyclist ever, was also a huge influence in Lance's life. When others abandoned him professionally, his agent Ken Stapleton stayed by his side.