Tiger Woods car/life crash

in tiger's defense, he was scoping out some chicks in the room at the time.

i was just astounded by how tone deaf & stoic this was, i really thought he had something better in him

simmons comparing him to r2d2 or something was otm

i mean even as a proud DUMB JOCK wtf guys

vvvv excited to read reilly's take on this

i didn't see it except for snippets, but a friend of mine said it was like a hostage video.

hahahaha otm -- in a way he kind of has been taken hostage

i really think mcgwire had the best game plan for this kind of thing -- put out a prelim press release where you lay out the facts so you don't have people reading into your emotion and stuff like that & then do a one on one w/ a journalist you trust, who will push you a bit but won't impale you

seriously! i mean if he just sent out an open letter of the transcript to this it would have been 100x better...still would be completely devoid of humanity but it would be way harder to tell at the very least

Dave Zirin on Tiger's corporate villainy (the kind that matters):

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dave-zirin/tiger-woods-deserves-your_b_374029.html

seriously! i mean if he just sent out an open letter of the transcript to this it would have been 100x better

if he just apologized privately to his wife and anyone else he personally knows who's been hurt by his actions, that would be 100X better. tiger woods doesn't owe "the public" an apology. he's said as much (in a nicer way) when this story began to surface, and i imagine that's why he sounded so stilted and awkward at this ridiculous press conference.

yeah i agree with that 100% but that would never happen

TW was apologizing to consumers of his brand.

zirin more recently:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/531946/tiger_woods_rehabbing_his_brand

zirin is great btw

"I haven't seen anything this painfully scripted since the Phantom Menace."

the Jack Johnson connection is tot on point.

if he just apologized privately to his wife and anyone else he personally knows who's been hurt by his actions, that would be 100X better. tiger woods doesn't owe "the public" an apology. he's said as much (in a nicer way) when this story began to surface, and i imagine that's why he sounded so stilted and awkward at this ridiculous press conference.

Dead on. Yesterday was a charade, but the more I think about it, it was less Tiger's charade than the PGA's. The orchestration that's unfolding is a gradual "We accept your apology, welcome back" on behalf of the PGA. Notice how quickly the comissioner was trotted out for sympathetic comment. With baseball, it's impossible for one player to be larger than the game, so Bonds and Clemens and the rest are basically left by the league to tend to their own damage control--they're cut loose as quickly as possible. The PGA can't do that; it's dying right now. I honestly believe that, either actively or tacitly, yesterday was the PGA's dog-and-pony show.

But both sides don't get the central dynamic of today's Seinfeld-like press conference (it was about nothing). This is about brand rehabilitation for the first billion dollar athlete.

really??? both sides don't get that? what the fuck is this guy talking about?

btw i really dont think this story has been racialized to the extent he claims either.

tbf cad his point wasn't that the story had been "racialized", just that the public takes more of an interest in black male sexuality. i don't always agree with everything he says but he's a great sportswriter - it's a field that could use more commies tbh

On the surface I don't find Woods particularly more "tainted" than Michael "Republicans Buy Sneakers Too" Jordan.

i would think the public takes in interest in the sexuality of the most famous athlete in the world no matter what race they are.

i mean to suggest that this is a bigger deal because he is black is o_O imo and i'm just not seeing the evidence for it

yeah if he can limit these embarrassing pr things i think he'll be on much the same track - two years from now when he's winning 2 majors a year again no one will remember this

xp cad it was a pretty tossed-off point i'm not getting hung up on it

yeah i gotcha, i've read some of this guy's other stuff and i like it but some odd points in this one.

i'm sure there's some psychology he's alluding to that's very possibly legitimate, it's hard to make that connection w/ an individual case like this tho. would have helped if he named a couple other instances & what they had in common

but Tiger was the non-scary/surly nonwhite athlete it was OK for Tea Baggers to like! (cf Bonds, Kobe) And whaddya know, he turns out to have a mammoth libido!

i honestly don't buy the idea that he doesn't owe the public an apology -- the man made hundreds of million dollars off endorsements that he secured -- and "we" paid for -- because he presented himself as a moral stalwart, a consummate role model who was an anecdote to the allen iversons & alex rodriguezes of sports -- and for it to be revealed that he cheated on his wife with likely hundreds of women is a pretty big deal imo, so i do think he owes us something

he's an anecdote, alright!

& i think his situation is special not only because he's tiger but because how egregious & insane & uncaring it was -- no one really remembers or cares that kobe was accused of rape & had to admit to being an adulterer, because it's something that happened once and me manned up & faced the music about it -- for tiger to be all LEAVE ME ALONE is fucking bullshit cuz a. he's trying to have his cake and eat it too b. if he would've just addressed shit way earlier, the thing would've blown over already

afaik, woods never said "i'm faithful to my wife, unlike your other sports heros, so follow me, not them." his clean image, it seems to me, is more a function of the way golf portrays itself (i can't recall many other golfers in scandelous situations).

as far as bryant, i'm not sure what you mean. he couldn't avoid the issue because he was being prosecuted for rape. he denied it, fought it and moved on. i don't see that as equivalent to voluntarily "manning-up and facing the music."

btw, even if woods did try to have his cake and eat it too, i'd still say he doesn't owe the public an apology. cheating on your spouse can be an incredibly painful, embarrasing situation for the victim. i don't think it's very fair to woods' wife to insist that he make public apologies for such private failings, because such a forced apology might deepen the pain for, and/or have a damaging impact on, woods' wife and family -- the only people who have a real stake in this situation.

my having spent $10.00 dollars on a woods-endorsed product gives me an infinitesimally tiny stake in the genuineness of woods' clean-living image.

kobe had a press conference where he answered actual questions and showed emotion & stuff -- and of course tiger didn't explicitly say "i'm faithful to my wife, unlike your other sports heros, so follow me, not them," but this is how he portrayed himself & the public had feelings & money invested in him because of the way he allowed himself to be characterized & marketed by people at IMG or by himself or whatever. he was different, he wanted to be different, he always thought he was different and he made a ton of money off of that. when you allow the public to think of you that way, you better be able to hold up your end of the bargain, because you are not some innocent bystander who is along for the ride.

& anyway, his income comes from the public, whether directly or not. people paid to see him golf, they paid to buy the things that he endorsed. the public made him a billionaire, plain and simple. and when it is revealed that he did what he did, i think the least he can do is answer some fucking questions and not barricade himself behind a prepared statement.

i don't think it's very fair to woods' wife to insist that he make public apologies for such private failings, because such a forced apology might deepen the pain for, and/or have a damaging impact on, woods' wife and family -- the only people who have a real stake in this situation.

― Daniel, Esq., Saturday, February 20, 2010 8:44 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

uh i'm sorry but if you marry tiger fucking woods when he is one of the most famous humans on the planet, this is what comes with the territory. your life is no longer private. this is what you chose by marrying the man. i have little sympathy for this.

if he didn't want intrusion in his life by the public he should've been like barry sanders or some shit and taken the earnings from his sport & kept a low profile & not cheated on his wife with prostitutes and porn stars

i sorta do and don't agree with you. yes, he made a huge amount of money out of his status as a modern version of the all-american icon, but this status was not really one he created for himself, rather imposed upon him. apart from by being good looking, non-white and exceptionally good at golf, all he did was accept this imposition for the cash rewards it brought. Tiger Woods as flawless icon was always a fantasy that you/we bought into; to anyone who is that much of a sucker, maybe he does owe you an apology for shattering the myth in such a spectacular way but maybe it should just be a lesson to stop believing the bullshit that these pr companies sell you.

that in itself may be bullshit. i'm quite drunk.

i don't think i have any vested interest whatsoever in anyone simply because i'm persuaded to buy a product because they endorse it. i think that expectation is unreasonable. and it can have damaging consequences for the real stakeholders. say woods' wife told him that she's incredibly angry but still sorting out her feelings, and for the sake of her and their children, she asked woods to not make public statements about the situation. you think that woods should go make a public apology anyway because he's made money endorsing products based on his "clean" image?

also maybe she married him because she loved him, and would have done so if he wasn't a superstar. you think she forfeits all the normal privacies of married life because she had the misfortune to fall in love with a famous athelete?

there have been plenty of very rich & very successful sports stars who don't end up in tiger's position -- it's not that hard, i really have no sympathy for him in this situation -- it's not like his kid has cancer and the paparazzi is repelling down hospital buildings to get a photo of the kid on his deathbed

i'm reserving most of my sympathies for his wife and family. nevertheless, i do not see the connection between his income, my having contributed a tiny percentage toward it, and him owing me -- or the "public" -- some sort of duty. president nixon and bush owed the public an apology, tiger woods doesn't.

I've followed Tiger fairly closely since he won his first Masters--he single-handedly rekindled my interest in golf for the first time since the mid-70s--and the idea that he was a moral stalwart has never had a thing to do with it. (The fact that he was black--the sheer anomaly of a black player dominating the whitest of all sports--absolutely, that initially had a lot to do with it.) Tiger the moral stalwart was a fabrication of his sponsors; he didn't discourage it, and he took them for every penny he could get out said image, but, unless I missed something, I just don't recall him pandering to it (hence the frequent flashes of Tommy Bolt-like temper on the course; he never pretended to be Steve Garvey). (Even though it turns out he is Steve Garvey...I digress.) Any adult who feels terribly let down because he's been out there fucking anything that moves, I just don't get it.

for one, by answering questions from the press -- which btw if there was a question that totally crossed the line in his mind he could've said "i'm not answering that or no comment" -- i don't see how he's protecting his wife or his children. maybe, you know, he shouldn't have cheated on his wife with 30 women, if he was worried about his wife & his kids.

& as far as elin yes, i think there are many privacies you forfeit when you marry someone of his stature, and these things are quite clear.

Any adult beyond those who know him personally, I should say, his wife above all else, obviously.

& you know, they're trying to play the public for fools. i feel bad for her because of what he did, but by the same token, it's disrespectful & insulting for them to say, for instance, that elin was trying to valiantly save tiger from death by bashing out the windows of his car with a golf club. no one believes that shit, and i think it would go a long way to getting people to back off -- which is what they so desperately crave -- if they, idk, just admitted to the shit that people already know happened anyway.

i disagree completely (tho i understand and respect your view). i think we've not likely to make much headway beyond this point.

i hate golf as a sport. not enough violence.

america is a sympathetic country & it's one that loves its redemptive stories, but no one likes to be explicitly lied to, which is what they're doing

the whole thing is just... there's such an obvious & simple gameplan when you're a public figure for being able to turn something like this in your favor, and the way that they've handled this has been so spectacularly bad & misjudged that it's fascinating

daniel otm & i'd much rather see tiger display contempt for "the public" and the sports media than pander to them

i guess i just don't see how telling the truth is something that is so painful & intrusive & horrible for tiger