“What we have here is the first superstar athlete chased down by a digital posse,” says Rick Reilly of ESPN Magazine.
“Rightly or wrongly, the tabloids and the gossip sites got their man in breathtaking speed,” he continues. “To bring down someone as powerful and private as Tiger Woods is like seeing a lion crammed into a bird cage.”
Such is the case in the story of Tiger Woods, the billionaire who’s managed to stay more private than Howard Hughes while hiding in plain sight on golf courses in the summer. And not only has he lost his privacy, but he’s lost the perfect-ness of his personal brand. Everyone knows everyone is human, but now even Tiger has become one of the rest of us, and the tabloids are eating it up.
But amidst the stories of marital transgressions, girls in every port (or fairway?), paying off girlfriends and even paying off his wife, Mr. Reilly’s story is of a redemptive nature, and we need more of that.
“None of this makes him a bad person,” Reilly concludes. “It only makes him a flawed person, and, now that he’s been pilloried publicly, a softer person. This will cost him millions of dollars and lots of sleepless nights, but in the end, I think he’ll be a better man for it.”
I love the redemptive nature of Reilly’s comments. In an era where the story of how the story became a story all too often becomes the story, Reilly has refocused us on what really matters: how another human being handles adversity and imperfection. We all face it. We all live in it. Even Tiger. And he will now have a great chance to move beyond being a celebrity to that place that many people–especially young people–need guidance. It’s what we do when we fail.
So here’s to a new kind of public notoriety for Tiger–and prayers in the meantime for what must be a very, very difficult time. And kudos to Rick Reilly, who is living out that great biblical truth: “Let He who is without sin cast the first stone.”
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posted December 5, 2009 at 10:23 am
One standard of behavior for the wealthy/another for pee-ons, and he’s a better man for it. Yeap.
posted December 7, 2009 at 10:32 am
These rich and powerful should look the gossip press in the eyes and says:
“What business is it of yours?”
But then again, these press people are far more immoral and dishonest than the adulterers they make their living from.
posted December 9, 2009 at 10:58 pm
As a society one of our biggest problems is that we create “celebrities.”
Celebrities that we attribute celebrity status to and esteem them because of their success in their chosen field.
Athletes become icons, actors become idols, musicians become magnified.
Sadly we choose far too often — and I make the same mistake — to allow their success in their field to seem to make them experts in another field.
To make matters worse as a culture we often idolize the young.
As a veteran youth worker I love teens and young adults, but too often the young and famous are thrust into positions of influence that they are ill-prepared for.
They may be famous and successful but too often have far too little wisdom and accountability to be role models at the level their fame esteems them.
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