We talk about entitlement in sports — the college sports fan, or booster, for instance, who believes it is his undelible right that his school have an undefeated 10-top program simply because it is his alma mater, or his college team of choice, or the beneficiary of his booster club dues, or all of the above.
Because I give them money, I actually have a say in policy. I have a say as to who’s hired and who’s fired. I’m an insider. My thousand dollars annually and I demand to be heard.
Of course you do.
Then there is the current rage in sports entitlement which, of course, involves Tiger Woods. You’re aware of it all by now: Golf superhero in early-morning car wreck! Former Swedish model to the rescue! All’s well that ends well, but just where in the world was Tiger Woods going at 2:30 in the morning?
I’ll tell you where he was going at 2:30 in the morning ... It’s none of your business where he was going at 2:30 in the morning, that’s where he was going.
You’ve never remembered something you forgot to pick up at the store and hopped down to the Dairy Mart or the Sheetz at 2:30 in the morning? Of course you have, particularly if you didn’t have to go to work the next day because it followed a holiday. But did you have to explain to Mrs. Kravitz next door where you were going at 2:30 in the morning? Well, OK, you might feel semi-obligated to tell her if you hit a fire hydrant before running over a tree in her yard; but even then I’m telling her I’m sorry and I’ll be more than happy to pay for the damages, and that’s about it.
It’s been a tough week or so for Tiger Woods. Last Saturday he served as an honorary captain at the Big Game between Stanford and Cal, and during a halftime speech to mark his induction into the Stanford Athletics Hall of Fame, he was roundly booed. Now granted, it was said to be Cal fans doing the booing, but, come on. Boo Tigers Woods? You can’t do that, can you?
I’d say that’s a rivalry with some teeth. Good thing for Maryland they’re going back to playing sedate and understanding West Virginia next year instead of Cal. Why those people would probably boo the memory of Jim Henson, the late Maryland grad who created the Muppets.
Those are some nasty people, now.
If Tiger thought he was having a tough week at that point, things were only beginning to sour as we came to learn the National Enquirer is about to break a story asserting Woods was having an affair with a woman in New York City. This, of course, is no laughing matter and, once more, technically none of our business. Except it is our business because Tiger Woods is not a private figure and we’ll have no choice whatsoever in the matter of finding out where he was going at 2:30 in the morning, whether we want to or not. It’s not right or fair, but that is the trade-off for somebody of Woods’ stature, which, likely, no more than 10 people in this world could possibly appreciate.
Then there is a little thing I like to call the police. The Florida Highway Patrol is due to release tapes of the 911 call today and, according to the Associated Press, will investigate the crash that left Woods’ mouth bloodied as a traffic accident.
Florida Highway Patrol spokeswoman Sgt. Kim Montes said investigators are “trying not to get on the rumor mill.”
The police are now involved and as a result, it is public.
When news of Tiger’s crash broke Friday afternoon, the worst, sadly, was feared as “serious” is a word that grabs your attention when it involves somebody’s medical condition. But then as the story began to develop legs — for instance, the accident happened 12 hours before it was reported — the legs took us to no direct point in particular, other than to spark us all in to some wink-wink conjecture and dimestore detective work for the sake of some yuks and chuckles.
Beginning today, get ready for some more directionless legs to develop. This story is not going to go away and as many have observed, it’s the classic case of the whole being greater than the sum of its parts.
The most important thing of all is Tiger Woods appears to be healthy and well, and for that we are thankful. But think about this: The days ahead very well could be the first days since he captured our attention and imagination 12 years ago with an 18-stroke victory in the Masters, when we find ourselves saying, “Tiger Woods? Whew. Glad I’m not him right now.”
Mike Burke is sports editor of the Cumberland Times-News. Contact Mike Burke at mburke@times-news.com.
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