For many, Tiger Woods was larger than life. Like baseball’s Jackie Robinson, Tiger thrilled fans with his stirring swing and was an off-the-course figure you could not help but believe in. Among his many attributes, we believed Woods to be a fierce competitor, class-act and devoted family man.
But things unexpectedly changed during a recent early morning mishap when Tiger Woods lost control of his SUV and his impeccable image. Though neither was totaled, both sustained considerable damage.
Tiger’s “transgressions” have created a media frenzy in the moment, but what are some of the salient lessons to be learned when this story no longer dominates the headlines? Here are a few takeaways worth considering:
Privacy is a Diminishing Right-Not an Enduring Virtue
Through his website, Tiger recently issued a commendable and conciliatory statement regarding his transgressions. Tiger also talked about the right of privacy, where “the virtue of privacy is one that must be protected in matters that are intimate and within one’s own family.”
While there is a right to privacy it is nonetheless dwindling in this age of the Internet, voicemails and routine credit/debit card transactions. Do you have a Facebook or a MySpace page? If so, then your right to privacy is even more diminished.
For public figures like Tiger Woods, however, the right to privacy is practically non-existent. Legally speaking, what the media may dig-up about a celebrity like Tiger is fair game so long as the information was not printed or aired with “actual malice.”
To be fair, Tiger as a public figure doesn’t owe the public any explanations, justifications, or details surrounding his apparent extramarital relationships. However, he should not lecture the media for his privacy problems when it seems it was he who was public about chasing other women. Moreover, Tiger has long enjoyed the benefits of marketing his pristine image in public for mega millions. Only in recent times has a more accurate, but less favorable portrayal emerged, resulting in Woods’ plea for the protection of privacy.
And to be clear privacy is not a virtue. Privacy has absolutely nothing to do with advancing a moral excellence or an objective good.
Instead, authentic virtue regarding matters that are intimate within one’s own family focuses on self-giving and the proactive courage to clean up your act. It refrains from egoism and making a covering-your-tracks call that says, “Can you please, uh, take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and may be calling you.”
Let He Who is Without Sin Cast the First Stone
When in the book of John, Chapter 8, the woman caught in adultery is about to be stoned by the scribes and Pharisees, Jesus writes in the ground, “Let the one among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.” Thereafter, all bystanders left and no one condemned the woman.
Similarly, there is not a person among us who has the spiritual right to cast condemning stones at Tiger Woods for his alleged adulterous acts. Tiger, his family and all who were involved in or affected by this scandal deserve our prayers and support.
None of us is above reproach and if we were to put ourselves in Tiger’s shoes, with all of the pressures and temptations that go along with the territory, can any of us be sure that we would not have fallen?
Recent nationally representative studies in the United States found that about 10-15% of women and 20-25% of men admitted to having engaged in extramarital sex. And even some of America’s most celebrated founding fathers like Alexander Hamilton, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson had similar issues with “transgressions.”
Jesus makes clear that we are to be compassionate, to love the sinner and to hate the sin. Our challenge, like Tiger’s, is to pick ourselves up and to strive to sin no more.
Corporate America Lacks Moral Courage
Tiger Woods earns much more from his endorsements off the course than he does on it. Last year Tiger earned $117 million, with only $7.7 million coming from tournament winnings. Earlier this year, he became the first sports figure to cross the $1 billion mark in earnings making him the richest athlete in the world.
Simply, Tiger is a one-man stimulus package and a cash cow for the game of golf and the likes of such corporate behemoths as Nike, Gillette, Accenture, Gatorade and Electronic Arts. These companies have in no small way built their fortunes and their brands on positioning platforms around Tiger.
While their support of Tiger and his family is admirable, the lack of financial repercussions and Corporate America’s failure to make distancing statements regarding Tiger’s transgressions is disappointing. Apparently, Tiger is too big of a cash cow for corporations to do the right thing. Making money takes precedence over being moral agents.
It is disheartening to hear advertising and brand experts in recent days say that adultery is not against the law and that people don’t consider it that bad so no harm no foul. The truth is that adultery is against the law (although not typically enforced) in almost half of the United States, and more importantly, the vocation of marriage as an institution is still the cornerstone of our society.
What is the message that is being sent here? It is okay for swimmer, Michael Phelps (who is equally without peer in his sport) to lose a lucrative contract with Kellogs earlier this year by being photographed smoking pot, but Tiger presumably gets a pass because by all accounts he only got caught cheating on his wife? Are not the far reaching effects of infidelity a bit more serious from a moral standpoint than someone who gets high?
In the end, we all have responsibility as role models, especially athletes like Tiger Woods. With privilege comes responsibility, both private and public. The call for each of us then is to be lights for love as we strive to serve others during this journey that leads us to the next.
And in Tiger’s case, let’s hope that he does not lose sight of the most important goal that he has publicly set for himself, “to become a better person and the husband and father that his family deserves.”
