Rick Reilly, widely read sportswriter who typically combines humor and emotion, has written a sober article titled “Woods Needs to Clean Up His Act.”
If someone told me a multi-ethnic golfer was going to come along from my hometown and dominant for decades, I would have assumed I would have been front and center on the bandwagon. But, for reasons I’m not entirely sure of, I haven’t become a Tiger guy.
But after reading RR’s piece, I find myself taking the contrarian view. In fact, apart from the “f’in photographer. . . and break his f’in neck” I can accept Tiger’s tirades. Maybe RR’s hackles are up because of the obvious contrast with the seemingly comatose corporate billboards that roam PGA fairways. Yeah, Tiger runs hot, but is there only one way to approach golf at its highest level? Can’t excellence take different forms?
Here’s an idea, when Tiger blows up, parents can talk about it with their kids. Maybe they can explain that just because someone excels in athletics we shouldn’t assume their private life is equally excellent. Maybe the lesson is everyone is imperfect and we’re better off emulating the family members, teachers, and neighbors we know best and who hold our families, classrooms, and communities together.
Aren’t children smart enough to understand that just because someone excels in the public square–whether in athletics, politics, or other types of work–their private lives aren’t necessarily worth emulating.
In essence, RR argues, “because Tiger’s the best golfer, and because he has the most eyes on him, he should set the best example.”
Why though?
The related social scientific discussion is because most everyone is flawed in their private lives, we need to seriously reassess our tendency toward celebrity worship and be far more pragmatic about human vices. In fact, that’s why the rule of law and institutional checks and balances are so important.
Pressing Pause 
Regarding Tiger’s tantrums, I’d agree with you Ron—yes, excellence can indeed take many forms. He’s obviously super-competitive, he shoulders high standards, and when they dip, he stops enjoying himself. Still, who really enjoys being on the losing side of anything? I too would make allowances for his “acts of frustration” but only up to a point. There’s simply no need to eff up a photographer. I think perhaps champions reveal even more of themselves in defeat than in victory. Where does the desire to win end and a limousine-sized ego begin—hmm, I wonder—or perhaps they’re related on some level? I mean isn’t winning a form of subjugation?
I am still waiting for a top ten, top five tennis star, who in the heat of the frustration of some epic match, not only breaks their racket, but sits down at the baseline and proceeds to eat it too, strings, frame, handle and all, oblivious to gasps from the shocked crowd, or the umpire’s demands to Stop! Stop! Stop!!
Nonetheless your essay raised an intriguing question about peoples’ public and private selves, the gap between these two modes of expression, and the discrepancy that arises thereof—the masks.
Bill Clinton springs immediately to mind.
I suspect that a decade ago during the presidential campaign in America, Bush’s marginal victory over Gore might have been an indictment against Clinton and his, uh, moral failings. It’s possible it was refreshing to have a president who didn’t seem lecherous, who truly looked upon Jesus as his “Lord and Savior”. The States is different from Europe in this respect; the Piccadilly Circus in a leader’s private life is tacitly acknowledged but most often let go. As long as the Circus doesn’t interfere with a leader’s ability to lead, and a lion doesn’t break from behind the bars to tear off a woman’s skirt and bloody her thighs, or an elephant stomps someone to death, they are fine.
Okay. So we’ve all got these vices in our private lives. And yet we present benign or benevolent images to the world at large. For me, there’s something sad about this, something almost hypocritical; and it’s baffling for example that the Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi with his alleged ties to the mafia and dalliances with attractive female aides amongst other things, is given the benefit of the doubt by his public.
According to Don Miguel Ruiz the Mexican American physician and author, this is all part of a great dream, a dream we have constructed through the ages of man, with its systems of rules and laws; and in this dream we are asleep—hypnotized. In our attics, in our basements, the secrets begin their generations.
I can understand an evolutionary basis for our collective need to don our various masks. In a sense it’s really about survival in the world of humans, isn’t it? Anthropologists and evolutionary biologists say we are a social species. We need to gaggle, haggle. Come together. But, if I put it crassly, might I describe us as—herd animals? “Sheeple”? Has anyone else ever noticed the similarity between people lying and sunning themselves on the beach and frolicking in the water, and a colony of sea lions or elephant seals, or walruses, hauled out onto land, lulling about, occasionally taking a dip into the water? And occasionally when someone falls victim to a shark, it’s analogous to great whites feasting on fur seals that enjoy the buffet in the cold waters off South Africa.
I’m assuming parallels between us and the animal kingdom, I am assuming we have “animal” sides. I am assuming it is normal not shocking that deep down I never trusted the priests that populated my Catholic childhood. I am assuming that most people might not be who they really say they are. And is this liberating, because at least I am saying, You’re human, and not a robot, you’ve got animal sides, sometimes you might fail, sometimes you might even do a deplorable thing, and why should I be the first to cast the first stone? Or is this damning because I am admitting the possibility of evil in all of us?
I don’t know, Ron, I honestly don’t know.
Good post. But these are the sentiments of a mature person,who has gotten to a point in his life where he does not need heroes to sustain him. Understanding that Tiger is just a person like you and I who has strength and weaknesses is a good realization. I would even extend your sentiments to the steroid era in baseball. It is awful for baseball because of the honored place of stats. No sport is more stat driven. But if we learn to except people has human, we can understand the temptaion to do things that give you that edge, especially when it makes millions of dollars of difference and you feel you are playing on an unequal field by not doing it. The more amazing thing are those that chose not to use knowing that it might endanger his or her career.
On the hero point, I think kids need there heroes. I don’t think they have the maturity to just understand how human everyone is. Idealization for a child is very important and leads to identification which leads to wanting to become something and strive for something. Think of Jackie R and all kids of color, or Obama and kids of color.