Tiger Woods was a person like the rest of us. He was marketed and packaged in a way to make him a hero for everyone. His accomplishments are still real even if the packaging is tainted. In this media age we are past the era of heroes.
Woods is just an average man spoiled by fame and athletes and performers get plenty of offers. They are human as such subject to temptations.
My hero would never be an athlete or a star. My hero is the man who works two jobs to support his kids. My hero is a priest who helps the truly needy in court. My hero is the kid who takes a job after school to help her family survive. My hero is the woman who loves her husband when times are tough. My hero is the person who thanks a harried waiter. My hero is the man who brings his wife flowers because he feels like it.
Sports are games. They are interesting and fun to watch but life is real.
My hero is the person that calls a recently laid off friends and buys them lunch. My hero is child who thanks his parents.
Maybe we need to look closer to home for heroes.
Woods was just a great athlete and we expected too much.
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9 comments:
I didn't expect anything of him. He's a schmuck who plays golf. I don't care how many hookers he needs.
Well, they built him up to the level of near godhood just because he was black. If he had been white, he would be just another great golfer, with maybe half the endorsement potential as Woods. It is very doubtful he would be named "athlete of the decade", nor would he be anywhere near the tabloid fodder Woods has now become.
That's the real tragedy. We build these guys up because we want role models, and gleefully tear them apart when they don't live up to the expectations we impose on them.
In the meantime, Chris Henry was on his way to possibly becoming a true sports hero. He seemed genuinely dedicated to turning his life around. Now he's dead, over stupid shit.
But on the other hand, people don't get what a hero really is. A hero isn't perfect, he or she is someone who struggles with contradictions, yet perseveres even if there is no perceivable gain, just because it's the "right" thing to do.
Oh well, like you said, the real heroes in life are overlooked. A woman who becomes a hooker because that's the only way she can keep her family together and care for them is as much a hero as a guy like Woods who pays her a thousand dollars an hour for sex.
Quit ducking Beak. When to we get the article on Likud and Idi Amin and the achievements of the rogue Likud state?
Beakerkin,
My Hero is my younger sister! She is a Social worker for our Comanche Nation. She is Childrens and Adult Advocate in Court proceedings.
People want to see and talk to "her", no one else will do. She is a hero to a lot of our People. She goes out of her way to make an Elder feel special she visits their home or goes out to the car when they are not well enough to come in to her office! She has a lot on her plate at her job, and yet there are those that critize her when she does her job by the book for the Children and Adult Elder. She is so precious and very respected. She could go anywhere in the U.S. and represent and speak for the Comanche People because she love them.
In that same vein, I respect you Beakerkin for the job you do and how you present yourself her on your Blog, very respectful.
Tiger Woods has let down a lot of younger black athletes, especially the males. I do hold him responsible for that failure.
AOW-
Tiger Woods has let down his wife, children, and maybe himself. He can't be held responsible for every young black male on the planet.
If anyone let them down, the media and maybe even all of us let them down by holding this clown up as an example for them to emulate. Worse, we insist on building up these false idols for others to emulate, and then complain when the feet of clay crack.
We expect a perfection from these people than no human being at his best is anywhere close to being able to maintain.
If we absolutely have to insist on manufacturing a false idol for black children to worship, why does it have to be a sports figure or an entertainer? Why not somebody who actually makes a contribution to the world? Why not Clarence Thomas, for example?
Tiger Woods is a great golfer. Big whoop. It's starting to look like his greatest accomplishment is going to end up being having a woman for every hole on a regulation golf course.
Heros possess character. Defined as; doing the right thing even when no one is watching.
Tiger didn't possess this attribute.
Can somebody please explain (I am asking seriously) why he is considered black although he is only one-quarter black, but half East Asian? He even looks more Asian than black.
That looks to me as if the one-drop-rule is still applied.
As long as the dumb masses elevate somebody to a semi-god level because he is good at hitting a small ball with a stick we will have Tiger Woods and other worthless scum fouling up the glossy magazine pages.
Race has very little to do with it. What about Paris Hilton or Britney Spears? Hey, and they don't even have the talent Tiger Woods has, irrelevant as it may be.
Oh by the way, all the "true hero" qualities that are described here by Beak or the other commenters are just how ordinary, decent people act. We are so used to people behaving like jerks, ineptitude and worse, that ordinary decency, or plainly doing one's job, now seems like heroism.
THIS is a hero.
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