April 13, 2011

Bill Simmons wrote about the Masters: The gift of Tiger Woods. I loved this.

I am supposed to think that he’s a poor role model — that he’s an adulterer, that he’s selfish, that he’s a phony, that he behaves badly on golf courses, that he’s someone I wouldn’t want my son to emulate some day. That’s horses—. I want my son to know that people screw up, that nobody is perfect, that you can learn from your foibles. I want my son to watch “The Natural” someday, hear Roy Hobbs say, “Some mistakes you never stop paying for,” and know that it’s not just words in a movie. I want my son to know that you haven’t lived until you’ve fought back, that you haven’t won until you’ve lost, that you can’t understand what it’s like to relish something until you’ve suffered, too. I want him to understand that it’s the 21st century, that we sit around picking our heroes apart all day, that we expect them to be superhuman at all times, that we get pissed off when they aren’t, that it’s hypocritical if you really think about it.