You Herd Me!: I'll Say It If Nobody Else Will (2 page)

So the eight-glasses-a-day thing wasn’t really true. And neither was the hype over a high-fiber diet. Decades after that craze, we were told that excessive fiber could reduce your life span. As a kid whose mother forced him to eat Raisin Bran every morning, I was hoping they’d come to that conclusion far earlier.

My point is this: you don’t have to be an expert to know that some things don’t make sense.

The water thing never rang true to me.

Neither did the idea that Tiger Woods was a sex addict.

After twenty-four years of covering sports, too many aspects of the Tiger-as-addict story failed to ring true. The nonsports media swarmed on this story and showed their ignorance of the sports world and the modern athlete every step of the way. They helped to legitimize the idea that Tiger was “suffering” from a disease, that he had no control over his actions, and that he should, in fact, be viewed with pity and not scorn.

Oh, please.

Can someone bring me another glass of water? I think I’m a glass short today.

Tiger’s fall from grace began when he wrecked his SUV outside his mansion in Florida. From there we learned that he was an inveterate skirt-chaser who ran around on his wife and screwed everyone from Vegas party girls to the waitress at the local coffee shop.

This, of course, presented a public-relations problem for Tiger. Sordid details about his life were splashed everywhere. Sponsors dropped him almost as fast as his wife, Elin Nordegren, did. In an instant, his image was changed forever.

What did Tiger become in the public eye? Deceitful, unfeeling, misogynistic.

There wasn’t much to say in Tiger’s defense. Every news story made him sound worse. Women came forward like an advancing army, each one willing to tell her story for a price.

How would Tiger get rehabilitated in the public eye? How could he transform the public image of the unfeeling horndog back into something resembling the endorsement machine who entered every tournament as a heavy favorite? Only one way: by becoming a victim. And who could possibly accomplish that feat?

Who could turn America’s most notorious cad into a sympathetic figure?

Nike, of course.

He lost all his major endorsements. Except one.

Nike.

And
how
could this happen?

Only one way:

Tiger had to go from villain to victim.

What was he if he
wasn’t
a bad person who did terrible things to the people closest to him?

He was a sex addict.

He couldn’t help himself.

The whole sex thing was out of his control. He wasn’t a guy who just wanted to use his clout as the most powerful athlete in the world by having sex with as many women as he could. No way—he was a
sex addict
whose life was consumed by his compulsion.

So off he went to the rehab clinic, where he would undergo intensive therapy intended to cure him of his addiction to having sex with beautiful women who weren’t his wife. He would be sequestered out of the public eye, free to work on his debilitating disease and come to terms with his behavior in private.

And while he was in there, I certainly hope he had his eight glasses of water a day.

Sex addict. Give me a break.

First, sexual addiction is not even a medically accepted diagnosis. You could look it up—I did. The controversy surrounding the mere existence of this “disease” devalues any fact-based contention that Tiger was, in fact, an addict.

But let’s go ahead and play along. (After all, that’s exactly what the nonsports media world did.) Let’s assume for the sake of
argument that sexual addiction is real, and Tiger Woods—the most famous and richest athlete in the world—was afflicted with it.

Sexual addiction, by its very nature, is defined as being so intense and compulsive, it derails your life. It’s an addiction, so it’s difficult for anything else to intrude on the act of feeding the addiction. And yet, from the time Tiger Woods was married (October 2004) to the day of the SUV incident that exposed his infidelity and led to his diagnosis, he won six majors and twenty-five events.

Does that sound like someone whose life was irretrievably disrupted? Does that sound like someone who couldn’t focus on any other aspect of life but the addiction?

The truth is, he was never better than when he was in the throes of this debilitating, paralyzing disease.

And you know when Tiger
stopped
winning? When he went into sex rehab.

The only reason his addiction became an issue is because his wife found out. It wasn’t because it was interfering so greatly with his life that he couldn’t putt or hit a fairway. The first sign of addiction was his wife finding a text message.

Second, Woods clearly had something to gain by entering a sexual-addiction clinic: his image. At this point, his career was being handled almost exclusively by the brilliant marketing minds at Nike. As other sponsors bailed, Nike not only hung on but took control of his flailing career to craft a shrewd recovery plan.

You can almost see them sitting around a big table in a big boardroom and one of them saying, “We’re in the brand-building business, and we’re going to save him.”

Addicts are sympathetic. They’re at the mercy of their addiction, so how can they be villains?

Third, it’s an acknowledged fact that rich, famous, athletic men get much more sex—and get it far easier—than the rest of us. Woods wasn’t the local mailman or traveling salesman, having to work overtime and concoct crazy stories to get his fix. He wasn’t even the run-of-the-mill celebrity—the kind Dr. Drew helps in his Pasadena, California, rehab center. No, he was a one-man conglomerate, the world’s most recognizable athlete, a guy who made $40 million a year from endorsements alone.

Tiger Freaking Woods.

He had dozens of people at his disposal, all eager to curry favor by doing El Tigre’s dirty work. He could make one phone call and set up any sexual encounter he could imagine—and that’s exactly what he reportedly did.

According to media reports, Tiger had fifteen affairs in five years of marriage.

Now, I don’t want to sound flippant here, and I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, but in my experience covering sports, that number is a low one for most star athletes, married or not. Framing Woods as some out-of-control, wild-eyed sexual monster doesn’t ring true.

You know what he sounds like? The backup small forward for every NBA team.

Tiger wasn’t a sex addict. He was simply a virile young man in a hollow marriage. He plays a sport with a lot of downtime, and he was looking for hookups.

That’s not an addiction.

Regrettably, it’s too often just the life of an American professional athlete.

We have to understand the unique place professional athletes hold in the culture. They’re often compared to actors, but the median salary for an actor in America is $39,500 a year. Not
every actor is George Clooney. Corporate CEOs might be rich, but they’re usually 60 years old. Politicians might be powerful, but most of them are older and not always attractive.

Professional athletes have everything: youth, wealth, looks, power. And they have the added bonus of travel, which allows them the sexual freedom no other industry can offer.

Over the past couple of decades, professional athletes have made giant leaps, right over the heads of not only regular citizens but also the swankiest celebrities. Compare that sub-$40,000 actor’s median to the median salary of the NFL’s 1,800 players: $770,000.

And these numbers are strictly salaries. It doesn’t take into account endorsements, which are often larger than the actual salaries for players, especially in sports such as tennis, golf, and the NBA.

Tiger Woods was not just
some
jock. He wasn’t some median-salary PGA pro hoping to break into the top ten at the Tucson Open. He was
the
jock, perhaps the world’s most recognizable human behind the pope and President Obama.

My point is this: you can’t take the concept of sexual addiction as it may apply to 90 percent of the world and apply it to Tiger Woods. Call him what you will—unfaithful, deceitful, uncaring—but please don’t say that his decision to have multiple sex partners works the same way it would with the rest of us.

Remember back to when the story broke and Tiger went into rehab. He not only exited the public stage—he disappeared. He went into such deep seclusion nobody could even get a photo of him. In this age of iPhones and sports blogs and paparazzi and TMZ, when a lot of people would have paid a lot of money for a quick shot of Woods, it was more than a week later when a fuzzy shot of a guy who looked like Tiger—wearing a hoodie and
standing on the porch of a condo-looking place we assume was the rehab center—was published on Radar online.

More than a week. Who can hide for more than a week? Not even the biggest actor can hide for more than a week.

Tiger Woods can hide for more than a week.

That’s power. That’s exclusivity. That’s juice.

The sports world is different, and Woods was different within that world. He was a one-man subcategory of a small subcategory. Athletes understand this. During the 2010 Winter Olympics,
Time
magazine’s Sean Gregory interviewed an athlete on the morning of Tiger’s famous sex-addict press conference. This athlete, told that Woods hugged a few people after stepping down from the podium, joked about Tiger’s so-called addiction and said of the people he hugged, “They’re like, ‘Yeah, you’re awesome. You go have that sex.’ ”

That athlete? Lindsey Vonn, who ended up becoming Tiger’s first public relationship in the postaddict phase of his life. It’s interesting that Vonn was married at the time of Tiger’s fall, too. Even she laughed at him. Her words reflected the general feeling among athletes and people who understand the sports world.

It was a staged apology for a staged problem.

But I’m sure I speak for everyone when I say I’m just hoping and praying Tiger has been cured of his addiction. I think there’s some evidence that his rehabilitation was successful. The biggest indication came in March of 2012. That’s when Tiger won the Bay Hill tournament, his first win since the sex scandal of 2009.

Sex
addict.

Please
.

Someone get me a glass of water.

I’ve traveled to forty-seven or forty-eight states, settling in only five, and I’m here to tell you there’s a stark difference between visiting a place and sinking some roots, no matter how deep. A home, a lawn, a neighbor—
that’s
how you get to know the heart of a place.

From a safe distance, maybe while vacationing from the North during another long winter, Tampa probably feels like a reasonably priced Valhalla. It’s got everything you’d want for a quick escape: cheap golf, warm weather, quiet beaches. It’s an affordable paradise.

From a distance.

The twenty months I spent living in Tampa felt like twenty years. To me, the draining heat and humidity from May through October made it feel like Libya with an NFL franchise. Or maybe Kenya with a Ruby Tuesday’s. It was crowded with retirees who moved there, drove slowly, complained too much, registered to vote in order to vote No on virtually everything.

School bonds? No.

Infrastructure improvements? No.

A new park? Hell, no.

I had a running joke with friends who wanted to visit: fly into Atlanta and follow the Waffle Houses south. After living in Las Vegas, Tampa had all the energy of a dying car battery.

And yet, when I returned there to cover Super Bowl XXXVII, it was a week of less-blistering sun, a lively Eagles concert with friends, and the best key lime pie this side of any other place that serves key lime pie.

Same city, two vastly different experiences.

For someone like me, who has called several places home, it was also instructive: you have to unpack your bags to truly understand a region or place. Some women you date, some you marry. But only one experience unveils a deeper truth, whatever truth that may be.

I’ve lived in all four corners of the country, from the Pacific Northwest to the Desert Southwest to Florida to Connecticut. The experience has given me a perspective on geography and demographics that I wouldn’t have otherwise. Embedding yourself in a community, understanding what makes the residents tick and ticks them off, can be powerful.

In a roundabout way, my experiences observing people and places in all corners of the country have led me to a conclusion: sports is the Great Equalizer, maybe the fairest aspect of American life.

I don’t mean to go all Toby Keith on you. You know, “Wave the flag, jump in the Ford, grab that gun, ready, aim—pew, pew, pew. God Bless ’Merica.” But I will say the idea of sports in this country almost brings a salty discharge to the corner of my left eye.

When it comes to sports, this is a great country.

Politics can be a harsh and humbling reminder of our limited patch of dirt. A conservative in California or a liberal in Texas may feel his vote is worthless. The electoral system gives us a set of standings that never change; certain states are like the Astros: always hovering somewhere near last place. A lack of population often translates to a lack of funding, which can leave one-stoplight towns looking up with envy and some bitterness at the more connected and powerful.