A take on Tiger Woods

Ordinarily, I wouldn't post an article by a basketball writer, but, I believe Bethlehem Shoals to be one of the best non-mainstream basketball writers today in his style and in his undoubted intellect. He echoed several of my attitudes in the following piece and I believe that he wrote them in better style and cadence than I would have.

Will Tiger Take the Kobe or MJ Road to Redemption?

Thursday, December 03, 2009

Posted By Bethlehem Shoals 

I'm not sure if Tiger Woods even cares about the NBA. I know he's been known to roll with Jordan and Barkley. But if he wants to make it through this sudden rough patch, he'd do well to look at a couple of examples from basketball's not-so-distant past. The advertising cult of personality surrounding him seems straight from the basketball superstar playbook. Thus, any attempt to salvage his public image necessarily relates to what happens with disgraced NBA players.

The poster child for image rehab is Kobe Bryant, who went from top pitchman, to celebrity indicted on sexual assault, to the more subtle, less ostentatious corporate presence we see today. Bryant's earning power certainly took a hit, but he's reconstituted himself as someone more concerned with basketball than celebrity—exactly what his career arc needed, and in fact, great for the public perception of him. Yet at the same time, plenty of people reviled Kobe Bryant before the Colorado case. His squeaky-clean image always rang hollow; anyone could tell the man has issues. Now, he earns grudging respect, since his rep is based largely on his performance on the court.

Kobe had the advantage of only having so far to fall; you could argue that, had it not been for a certain massive criminal charge, his commercial viability would've collapsed at some point anyway. The bubble had to burst; there was too much tension between Kobe's supposed likeability and the vibe he gave off. The better point of comparison might be Michael Jordan himself, who incidentally, is the only living athlete who can claim Tiger's level of greatness. For advertisers, Jordan was the original anodyne African-American athlete, a man whose skin color never got in the way of his capitalizing on his achievements. In large part, that was because MJ portrayed himself as the nicest, and possibly most boring, guy you'd ever meet.

But for all that's come out over the court of Jordan's career—for starters, the gambling problem, womanizing, ruthless competitiveness and arrogance in every situation, and inability to accept failure in himself or others—that public Jordan has remained largely unchanged. To a large degree, MJ has served as a model for Tiger. And as with pre-Jordan Rules Jordan, we pretty much figured Woods was that nice guy. Hook, line and sinker, it just seemed to make sense. Unlike Kobe, who was miscast from the beginning, this week's revelations force us to rethink Tiger Woods. And that's never fun, or good for the famous person involved.

Why doesn't Jordan ever change his advertising face? He has nowhere to go. Those ads with Charlie Sheen today make him look like a boor, but to change course would be an admission of defeat—an admission that he'd lied to the public. He's just gambling on the fact that he can continue to keep enough people in the dark about what a difficult person he really is. At the same time, Jordan has taken things a step further than Kobe. Bryant seems to have issues that extend far beyond simply wanting to be the best. As Jordan showed at his Hall of Fame speech, it might be impossible to separate his bad behavior from his athletic excellence—the very same thing that makes people pay attention in the first place.

Jordan doesn't lose ground, but he makes us inclined to see athletes as pathologies, not heroes. And isn't that the slippery slope Tiger's so afraid of? That it could all come crashing down and we might actually be surprised? If he goes the Kobe route, he risks only his short-term reputation. But if he toughs it out, and glosses things over, like Jordan, then the ultimate prize might no longer be there when he finally works his way back.

My only qualm with the article, is that I don't believe he stated his conclusion well enough. I would have added:

"Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods share an uncommon competitiveness and self-confidence that has propelled them to achieve, perhaps, unprecedented success in their respective sports and commercial interests. Where their persona is the epitome of athletic excellence to some, it is viewed as narcissistic by others. Based on incidents in their off the course/court lives, it may be appropriate to say that they each struggle to turn their respective "game faces" off when not in competition -- it's as if they are always proving their infallibility, their superiority to themselves and whoever is watching in some fashion."