In 1993 when Charles Barkley stated succinctly that he wasn't a role model, the American public went all wet and rubbery.
I knew who Charles Barkley was at the age of 12. Who didn't? The 6" 4' 'Round Mound of Rebound' had established himself as a bonafide All-Star and legitimate Most Valuable Player candidate every season. While PTA moms and ideologue fathers decried Barkley's honesty, I sat oblivious. Here's what I knew about Charles Barkley at the age of 12: If you picked the Phoenix Suns in 'NBA Jam' you were going to roll with Barkley and Dan Majerle.
I didn't care that 'Sir Charles' wasn't a role model. I couldn't have cared less about his personal life and his point of view. Did I look up to Charles? Sure I did. It wasn't, however, because he was what a man was supposed to be. It was because he rebounded the basketball like a beast as an undersized power forward in the NBA. Later on I learned he had a gambling problem and possessed the propensity to toss smart asses through bar windows, which did nothing to destroy my fond memories of glorious 'NBA JAM' sessions.
Amid the dreams of the adolescent youth that aspired to be like Barkley and the rest of his professional sports brethren laid an undiscovered secret long buried beneath billions in revenue and mistresses: Professional athletes are humans just like us, and boy do we all have problems.
As Tiger Woods worked his way through the hallowed golfing grounds of Augusta National earlier this month, I sat at home with my wife watching every second of the tournament I'd grown to love during the course of my fascination with golf. It'd been awhile since I'd seen Tiger, the whirlwind force that drove millions of kids to the golf course in the mid-1990s. It was his first appearance in a tournament since he came clean (well, unintentionally) that he'd slept with about 50 women that weren't his wife. Following the Thanksgiving TMZ-induced haze that had the nation gawking at the three-ring circus that was Tiger's sideshow, the American public (and Tiger's sponsors) firmly decided that Tiger was something they no longer believed in.
I'd made my mind up months before that I couldn't care less about Tiger's infidelity. After all, that's not why I watch him play. Sure he nailed some pretty stellar pornstar talent (and some questionable Waffle House waitresses as well) and made a mockery of his seemingly manufactured marriage to Elin Nordegren, but in the end Tiger is who Tiger is. He is the greatest golfer of all time, and he likes to have sex with women who aren't his wife. But as he played, hiding behind new Nike-branded sunglasses as if to hide behind a lonely mask, something felt different. The unflappable, distinguished glare and dedication that had led to 14 major championships and untold wealth was lost to a sense of vacated confusion. Yet there he was, one of the most amazing athletes in human history being condemned for a private life that's nobody's business but his own.
Talk radio and media outlets burned with scorn for the once untouchable hero. Mothers blasted Tiger for his poor judgement. Some cried for Tiger to be banned from golf for life. More than one disappointed father openly lamented that their own children could never look up to someone like Tiger because he is what we aren't; morally bankrupt.
The problem is, America, our landscape is rife with moral bankruptcy. Our business tactics, billion dollar bailouts and bonuses to under performing executives; ashleymadison.com and interoffice affairs are freshly exposed for all to see. But we overlook our faults because we are average. We are not elite. We hold human beings with special talents to higher standards simply because they are different and they have more. It's sure easy though to overlook a drinking problem or an abusive personality amongst us regular people, but the second you lay a DUI on a Major League Baseball manager the world wobbles on its axis.
There was that time you were maybe a little too heavy handed with your kid, and maybe you got a little too close to your secretary at last year's Christmas Party. And in the end that's okay because you didn't get caught. There weren't 100 photographers hovering around like ravenous vultures waiting to get a piece of you. Don't worry about Tiger. He's paying for what he's done. He's lost millions in endorsements, his reputation is in the toilet and his wife is about to take him for half of what he's worth.
Tiger Woods isn't your problem, and he shouldn't be your kid's role model unless you want him/her to learn how to knock a 7-iron stiff from 200 yards. Leave Tiger to the golf, and you worry about who your kid is looking up to. It just might have been you when you didn't tell the checker at Kroger that they over-refunded you $20.
There's a line in a pretty famous book that says, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone." Me? I'm keeping my stones in my pockets and enjoying the talents of one of the finest players the world has ever seen.
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