Episode 38: Come to think of it, Av's skin is kind of dark. DAMN YOU TIGER!

Having been a father for 10 months, and an expecting father for nine months prior to that, you would think that I would be used to the idea by now, or at least aware of it in my daily conversations, but every so often I am still reminded that I am now 'one of those people with kids.'

I'll explain.

Yesterday at work a customer at the bar was engaging myself and a co worker of mine in a conversation about Tiger Woods. As I mentioned in the previous post, I am obsessed with the Tiger Woods saga. It is my new favorite news story. The conversation was focused around how dumb Woods must be to agree to a $300 million pre-nup when he was, as we know now, a notorious womanizer even before he was ever married or fathered children.

The three of us agreed that paying off your ex-wife was an awful waste of $300 million, and were debating how he was going to clean up his image enough to make that money back in endorsements when another customer at the bar, who I know because he comes in frequently, chimed in.

'Guys, guys, you're missing the point here. He deserves to pay that money. He should have to pay money to all of the kids he let down who looked up to him. Dan, what would you tell your daughter if she were older? What if she was a fan of Tiger Woods?'

Whoa, whoa, whoa. This question shocked me back in to reality. I AM going to have to have difficult discussions with my daughter, and perhaps any other children who happen to come along in the future. So, I thought about it and it actually made me mad. Not that Tiger Woods 'let people down.' No, it angered me that so many people hold athletes to such a high moral code, in a way allowing their children to be let down.

One of my favorite human beings, Basketball Hal of Famer Charles Barkley, once said after throwing a guy through a bar window, or a DUI or something, 'I am not a role model.' Those words, uttered sometime in the early 90's, have never rung more true than they do today. Athletes are not, and should not be role models. Ever. Do they lead desirable lifestyles, getting paid millions and millions of dollars to play a sport for a living? Yes. Do most young children, especially young boys, strive to be like that some day? Of course. But it should be the performance on the field, not off of it, that those children look up to. Furthermore, it should be the responsibility of the child's parents, not the athlete, to instill the values that they want in their children.

It should also be the responsibility of parents to expose their children to REALITY. Yes children can, and I think should, play sports. Yes, I think sports are a great outlet and a great way to drift away from real life for adults, too. That being said, my favorite athlete growing up, and still to this day, is Shaquille O'Neil. I have always loved the guy. He is a dominant basketball player and he has a personality bigger than his 7'1, 320 lb frame. I have seen all of his movies (Man of Steel is my favorite) and I even listened to his rap album (once). As a child I wanted to be a basketball player. Unfortunately, I stopped growing up at 6'2 when I was about 16 and I started growing out at about 20, expanding (or, as I like to say 'filling out') from 170 to about 205 lbs. Parents should take note. Tell your kids to keep working hard at the sport they play, but know that they should probably study for their English test, too, because they are probably going to have to consider getting a real job some day.

One of the reasons that I like the Tiger Woods story so much is that Tiger, more than any other athlete ever, has made millions upon millions off of this 'I'm a great guy' persona that he puts forth. In a time when Pacman Jones is showering strippers in cash, Ray Lewis is avoiding murder charges for a Superbowl night stabbing and Alex Rodriguez is fake-crying because he used steroids, Woods was held on a pedestal as the 'holier than thou,' perfect pro athlete. All this story does is expose Woods for what he is. Another lying, cheating, money-hungry athlete enjoying his life and the endless supply of cash and promiscuous women that it provides.

It is for these reasons that I do not feel bad about the blatant invasion of privacy that the media displayed with this story. As a former reporter, one of my least favorite things about the profession was the amount of time that was spent digging in to people's lives. I despised stories where I had to call a person's family after they passed away or even worse, had to try and dig up dirt on a person suspected of doing something that was perceived wrong or inappropriate. I don't know exactly why I became a reporter, but I know that it wasn't to ruin anyone's life.

On the national level, I feel like nothing is more inappropriate than the sports media digging in to and reporting on the personal life of athletes. Reporting that Tom Brady had a baby is one thing, but why do I need to read on ESPN.com that the aforementioned O'Neil got divorced? Or that CBS football broadcaster Jim Nance has to pay his wife $600,000/ year in a divorce settlement? I don't care, and neither should you.

On the other hand, the Woods story is different. The media has stroked Woods' ego more than any other athlete in history. Painted him, like I said, as the greatest thing in sports. Splashed him on every magazine cover and never once said a bad word about the guy. Well, he fooled the media just like he fooled his wife, and now I am not sad that he is paying for it.

Do I think Tiger is a scumbag for what he did? Sure, I do. Not necessarily because of what he was doing, however, it is more because he has two young kids who now have to deal with the situation moving forward, and because of the false persona that I mentioned above.

What would I tell my daughter if she were a Tiger Woods fan? I would tell her the same thing I would tell anyone who looks up to these athletes: sports are entertainment, and the athletes are getting paid- a lot- to do it. You can strive to do what they do, you can wish to be like them and make all of that money and get all of that glory, but what those people do off the field is no different than what the guy next door does when he isn't working at the bank, or the construction site or wherever he works. If the man at the grocery store deli leads a secret life and cheats on his wife, how is that different than if Tiger Woods does it? It shouldn't be if you instill values in your children rather than allowing popular culture to do it for you.

Consider this. I hear the tired old argument all the time about 'today's professional athletes' or even in the entertainment world, 'these actors today' or 'these sluts on TV today.' This is far from unique to today's culture, it i just reported more because we are in the age of the Internet and 'instant' news. JFK slept around. Mickey Mantle was such a drunk that it shortened his career and eventually killed him. Judy Garland had a massive drug problem. It isn't the era. It is the lifestyle. No matter what anyone says, no one can predict what would happen to them if they were handed millions of dollars tomorrow. I can call Pacman Jones every name in the book for what he has done, but if I was awarded NFL first round draft pick money, lets say $8 million just for the argument. If I was handed $8 million at age 20, there is no telling what I would have done with it. I went to my first strip club when I was 19 (sorry Mom). How would I have acted if I had $100,000 in my pocket instead of $100? I would like to think I would have acted civilly, but there is no guarantee.

Athletes are not, and should not be role models. If you want to argue the merits of paying these young men and women that much money that is fine, but just remember it is our fault that it is this way. Sports and entertainment are the Great American Getaway, and we are willing to pay $12 for a movie ticket and $200 for a good seat at Fenway Park. That is telling movie studios and and team owners to pay away because we want the best. We want to see Brad Pitt in that bad ass leading roll and God Dammit I don't care if you have to pay $100 million each, I want the best player at ever position on the Red Sox.

My point , if there is one, is that sports and entertainment aren't going anywhere and they surely are not going to change, so instill values in your own kids and don't be fooled by the 'nice guy' athlete, because you never know when you are going to wake up to find out that he or she was carried out of a hotel room in handcuffs covered in blow and trying to explain what happened to that hooker.

Sorry if today was a little off topic or at all preachy, but, after all it is my blog. Don't worry, the holidays are coming up. You will all get your fill of Av tearing up wrapping paper and the like.