Cautionary Tale of Tiger

Eldrick “Tiger” Woods might well have crashed his Cadillac Escalade into a dam, given the deluge of reports and rumors flooding the electronic, broadcast and print media since his Nov. 27 accident. We’ll be hearing much more about his alleged extramarital trysts, which he terms “transgressions” and “personal sins,” in the coming days. But most interesting is the frenzy this has generated.

Maybe it’s human nature to take perverse delight in the failings of those seemingly living idyllic, utopian lifestyles. Woods has had that: Looks, intelligence, athleticism, homage as one of history’s greatest golfers (perhaps the greatest), fame, fortune, a lovely trophy wife, picture-perfect kids. And yet, if allegations are true, those apparently were not enough. His wife might be Swedish, but something was rotten in Denmark.

Experts may attempt to explain the motivations of high-profile philanders, but only the Woods family truly knows what has gone on behind their closed doors. The golfer par excellence now has consequences to face. As my mother often repeated during my adolescence – to my annoyance – “You make your bed, you sleep in it.”

But situations like this are far from new. Thousands of years ago, Israel’s King David had power, vast wealth, multiple wives (permissible in that culture) and many children, yet when he spotted Bathsheba on a rooftop, he determined to have her (2 Samuel 11). Years later their son, Solomon, who succeeded David as king and gained repute as being wiser than any of his contemporaries, stated, “I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure…everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind” (Ecclesiastes 2:10-11).

After a long lifetime of searching, Solomon concluded: “Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Tiger would be wise to heed that lesson.

The Price of Prominence

The sports world has been rocked by reports of misdeeds by many of its prominent figures:

• Michael Vick recently completed his jail term for sponsoring illegal and inhumane dog fighting.
• Former Tennessee Titans quarterback Steve McNair was found murdered by his girlfriend, who committed suicide. McNair’s survivors included a wife and children.
• Ex-New York Giants wide receiver Plaxico Burress was indicted by a grand jury for illegally carrying a gun into a New York City bar (wounding himself in the process).
• Boston Red Sox star David Ortiz was the latest baseball player exposed for using illegal supplements – although he claims not to have known he was doing anything wrong. He joins the elite club that already included Mark McGuire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez and others.
• Most recently, Louisville head basketball coach Rick Pitino, also married with children, purportedly admitted providing money to a woman with whom he had one or more sexual liaisons when she said she could not afford an abortion.

The reaction? I have heard everything from “ban them from sports forever” (in McNair’s case, relegate his memory to public disgrace) to indirect references to Jesus’ statements, “Judge not lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1) and “let him who is without sin cast the first stone” (John 8:7).

Frankly I don’t favor either complete condemnation or complete exoneration, but while we’re quoting Jesus, He said, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked” (Luke 12:48).

Each of these men was given much – talent, fame, money, influence. Shouldn’t we have a right to expect much in return, at least in terms of personal ethics and integrity, as well as on-field (court) performance?