Cheers and Jeers
Sportswriter Steve Tietz will use this blog to try to duly reward the great, praise heartily the hard-working, uncover the unsung, and take to task the spoilsport, the foul-mouth and the crass in the local prep sports scene. He'll try to remember that kids are just kids and that coaches aren't in it for the money. He'll try to gently remind parents that the kids are playing for fun, not for profit and that the officials, though occasionally human and therefore prone to error, are there to ensure fair play and not out to get anyone.
A change in his attitude could benefit Tiger and the world in general
Imagine this.
Another earthquake, in another poverty-striken, over-populated region of the world. The usual players, the Red Cross, CARE, and the World Bank all come into play providing rescue and medical service, promises of aid in rebuilding and emotional support for the grief-laden survivors.
But along with those voices, comes another. Someone with a "Q" rating off the charts. Someone who, now even in his current diminished state, could rally thousands, maybe even 10s of thousands to donate preposterous sums to the relief effort.
He could do with a mass e-mailing off his website or he could spend a little of his vast fortune buying full page ads in major newspapers around the world.
Imagine the response.
Imagine Tiger Woods doing this.
And it could be him, if he really wanted to do something positive with his life right now.
Yes, the man has much work to do. He is trying to repair his probably already fatally damaged marriage, a process made all the more difficult by the daily reports of still more women having shared his bed.
A process he made even more difficult himself by his hubris, his arrogance, the insular nature with which he carried on his lfe for so many years in his singular reach to be the greatest golfer of all-time. He set up foundations and gave money to charity, but he has never truly reached out to people.
He set himself above us all.
Phil Mickelson has only a fraction of the major titles Tiger has, but Mickelson is beloved by the fans, because he slaps five with them along the fairway, because he puts his face on public education projects, and because he stood by his wife and took time for her during the worst of her cancer scare.
Tiger could be that way, but can he change himself enough to do it after a lifetime of shielding himself from the regular world?
A start, before any grandiose thoughts of global outreach in a time of crisis, would be a sitdown on major network television, with a respected voice in sports journalism., Others have suggested Oprah or even Matt Lauer, but I would like to see him meet with someone like Rick Reilly or Bob Costas, someone from within the sports world, who has history, perspective and a record of objectivity that's unassailable.
Someone who knows how jocks rise and fall and occasionally rise again.
There would be no preconceived format, no limit on the scope of the questions. It would be an honest Q and A. We would then see how much Tiger really wants to get back into the world's good graces. How much he really wants to escape his self-created hell.
His forthrightness would speak volumes.
And if he does that, and starts the process back, we can watch and see if really transforms himself in a way we can recognize.
Will he stop the cursing and muttering and club-tossing after every little golfing slight?
Will he rein in his tendency to dismiss the gallery as just a nuisance and occasionally shake the hand of a well-wishing fan after a good shot?
Wil he laugh openly and give free-ranging, genuine, honest answers in post-round press conferences?
And will he set a real example of real involvement, in an all-too real world with problems that could use more people of influence like himself taking a stand?
We would no doubt get our answer soon enough in a situation like that.
It's going to be difficult, but if he invests just a fraction of the effort he puts into making himself the athlete that he is, he can become in the paraphrased words of his late father, "Something truly great."
Besides, it can't be anything near as difficult as this "death-by-a-thousand cuts" experience he's going through right now. He has no control over anything currently in his life and that just has to be killing him.
Arnold Palmer once said that he admires Woods for his accomplishments, but in no way does he envy his life. What the true golf legend means, is that Tiger, because of his enormous popularity, can't possibly live a normal life, including going out for a casual dinner at a restaurant, or to see a movie at the multi-plex without drawing mass attention to himself.
And yes, you can feel a smidgen of pity for him in that instance, but this is the life he chose, from his very first professional swing at Brown Deer Golf Course at the late, lamented Greater Milwaukee Open, to his gritty win on one leg at the U.S. Open two years ago.
He wanted to be the best golfer in the world and he has achieved that.
Now he can reach for something more--Being a real honest human being.
Imagine that.
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