I’m amazed at the number of people who’ve asked why I haven’t written about Tiger Woods.
My first thought… has something happened to Tiger? (for the uninitiated, this is a little something called sarcasm).
The truth is I haven’t blogged about him because the situation isn’t exactly funny or educational.
At least the good type of educational.
There’s certainly a lot to learn.
I hate to say it, but I think as time goes by we may find out there are bigger issues that have caused his reckless behavior.
I may be proven wrong (wouldn’t be the first time… today… or well, any day), but I’ve worked in schools long enough to recognize when kids or adults act out in ways that are so out of the ordinary, something else is going on.
It could be drugs, alcohol, childhood issues, or who knows… but there’s something that isn’t quite right (I’m not a psychologist, but I’ve never come up with a theory that I didn’t think was pure genius).
I’m not making excuses for Tiger because no matter what, he is an idiot.
Maybe the biggest idiot in the history of mankind. Lucky for him, another famous person will one-up his idiocy in the next few months (won’t the rich, famous, and powerful ever learn?).
Don’t believe me?
Woods has made President Clinton look like a man who has excellent personal judgment.
The only people worse than Tiger are the ones around him. For them to look the other way for all of these years is a crime in itself.
This once again proves my theory that all of us need to be surrounded by people who will tell us when we are wrong. That’s a gift school administrators (and everyone) can give ourselves.
Hire people who are smarter and better people than you.
Don’t try to be the smartest person in the room (and note to Tiger… you weren’t the smartest… by a long shot).
No matter how much blame I place on Tiger and his posse of doofuses, we are also to blame.
Parents, sports fans, and society as a whole.
Tiger evidently has some problems. And I mean problems besides running from his wife, writing checks to half the waitresses in America (and I’m assuming there are some overseas…), and having the entire world judge and make fun of him for at least the next 60 years.
I can remember when his biggest problems were drunk guys yelling “You the Man!” in the middle of his swing.
Our problem isn’t that Tiger Woods has disappointed us. It’s that we continue to allow athletes the opportunity to disappoint us.
He’s human.
Obviously, very human. Like a spoiled frat boy who has credit cards with no limit.
His fans (me included) believed his commercials.
We forgot those companies were selling us a product. And Tiger Woods was the product.
When companies advertise, they don’t tell us the downside to their product. They accentuate the positives.
Evidently, they REALLY accentuated the positives with Tiger.
He’s a golfer.
A very rich guy who can hit a little white ball. That’s it.
That’s the whole story.
He’s not a role model.
He’s not someone our kids should look up to. He’s a golfer with terrible judgment (and a bit of a potty mouth).
If we want to watch him golf for entertainment, that’s great.
If we think his athletic abilities are an indication of his morals, we are wrong. Those are two distinctly different things.
Our society overpays and overworships athletes.
This starts in grade school and goes all the way to professional sports.
Tiger’s priorities are out of whack.
But so are ours.