The Tiger and the Cheetah

Oh man, am I gonna lose some readers with this one.

I was surfing on Facebook the other day (Is that what we call it? I’m not really sure.) and I came across an old classmate blasting Tiger Woods for his “apology” Friday morning. She said that when the story broke last Thanksgiving, she didn’t let her son watch SportsCenter for two weeks.

Of course, she wasn’t the only person talking bad about the superstar. Every news channel on t.v., every radio station, and just about every internet sight had something bad to say about the guy.

By the way, I hate that about news channels lately. They have way too many opinions, and not enough news for me. And not just about this subject, but pretty much everything that comes across their desks.

But on this Tiger subject I’ve got to say… Shut up already. For three months, I’ve heard people screaming about how he needed to come out of hiding with a public apology. And when he finally did, all anyone wanted to do was critique him and his speech.

My goodness, I’d hate to be a public figure in this country.

Folks, he looked into a camera that was being watched by 200 hundred million people and admitted some pretty bad things. You don’t think that was a little tough? And worst than that, 40 of his closest friends, co-workers, and his mother were a couple of feet from him when he did it.

Look, am I happy with him for cheating on his wife? Of course not. But it’s none of my business, or your business, or anybody else’s business. He didn’t owe me an apology, or you, or anyone but his sponsors and his wife.

Besides, we don’t know what their bedroom life is like, so I don’t see how we can automatically just throw all the blame on him for all of this. Don’t wanna get too graphic here, but for all we know she might be a cold dead fish. (Yep, that’s where I’m gonna lose half of you.)

As for my kids, well, maybe I’m going about this the wrong way but I wanted my kids to watch SportsCenter when all this stuff broke. And I made my oldest two watch his apology Friday. I wanted to use this as a teaching moment, not something to be afraid of and avoid.

I want them to understand that public figures, athletes, movie stars, and politicians are just regular people with a different skill set. They all still have problems, just like the rest of us.

I remember having a conversation years ago with a father who was mad at Mike Tyson when he went to prison for rape. I was much younger then, and didn’t have children yet. But I still had the same opinion.

“My kids look up to that guy,” he said. “He’s their role model.”

I thought to myself, “Then, isn’t that a ‘you’ problem?”

I’m not letting athletes all the way off the hook, because it would be great if they were all like Drew Brees and Peyton Manning. But the fact is, they aren’t. And even the two guys I mentioned here have some sort of problems in their lives, I’m sure.

Of course, I hope I’m wrong about that. Because two things I’ve learned about people in this country is 1) We love to build public figures up and 2) We love to tear them back down.