Lay off Tiger!

The interest of the American public into the private lives of their celebrities is pathetic. In fact the whole idea of making a sports personality into a role model, which we constantly do, is ridiculous. And you know the news media is going to juice the Tiger Woods incident up as much as they can, while all past groupies and wannabes crawl out of the woodwork and get their fifteen minutes of fame by confessing. Who cares?!

It’s the admiring public’s own fault if they feel let down when their heroes don’t live up to their expectations. I think back on Cowboy’s Receiver, Michael Irving’s drug-bust downfall. Parent’s were blaming him for betraying their children’s worship of him. I say to those parents, if you encourage or promote sport personality adulation then you deserve what you get. These athletes are just human beings—even through they do what they do better than most other people in the world.They should be revered for their talent and prowess but why should they be role models? What is the intellectual level of someone who would respect the political or moral viewpoint of an athlete? I’m not saying all athletes are stupid, but I’m as interested in the opinion of a celebrity as I am in the opinion of my neighbor.

In defense of Tiger Woods, just think how hard it must be to be young, wealthy and a world-acclaimed figure and not be affected by it. Any man who is chased by groupies in every country around the world and would be challenged not to succumb at some point. Not that I condone infidelity but shouldn’t any woman marrying a celebrity be aware of the pitfalls?

So please back off Tiger and attend to your own lives.