ELItorial

Tiger boycotts South Carolina...sort of

DONALD MIRALLE/NEWSMAKERS Is Tiger's silence innocence or political?

Over the past few years, athletics and morality in this country have become completely entangled. Fans want to root for the "good guy." Let's call it the Luke Skywalker syndrome. It probably dates from the 1980 "Miracle on Ice," when the underdog U.S. hockey team beat the big bad Russians for the gold medal. Fans got such an added rush from the "good guy" winning that they have been looking for the same rush since, in feel-good patriotic movies like Rocky, or in the revisionist Field of Dreams where Shoeless Joe Jackson gets to go to heaven. When athletes don't measure up morally, they're publicly guillotined—John Rocker, Charles Barkley, and Pete Rose, being obvious, recent examples. Focus in on the latest controversy.

Because Tiger Woods' name is bigger than God's, he doesn't have to decide whether he'll play in a tournament until a day or two before it starts. It's a weekly ritual—tournament organizers, sponsors, and network executives wait with bated breath for his decision. Will their tournament be just another Professional Golf Association (PGA) Tour stop, or will Woods draw record crowds and bring in millions in concessions, parking, and advertising? But more than usual rested on his decision this week.

On Thurs., Apr. 13, the PGA tour rolled into Hilton Head, S.C., for the first round of the MCI Classic. A PGA Tour stop since 1969, the MCI Classic is a quiet little tournament known for its fast greens, small fairways, and signature windmill on the 18th hole. But this year, because South Carolina isn't just another state, the MCI isn't just another PGA Tour stop.

Would Woods play? Rumors circulated for months. Would he use his star status to support the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) boycott of the state?

In the end, Woods took perhaps the most novel stance of his young career—he refused to comment. He's not playing in the tournament, but he claims it's because he's tired and needs a break after the Masters. Though he's been pestered for months for a stance on the boycott, Woods hasn't broken his silence. "I really don't have any comment," he told ESPN. "I'm a golfer. I'd rather just stay out of it."

Woods' decision, or rather indecision, was probably motivated by a mixture of political apathy, his own financial interests, and a desire not to offend either side. To paraphrase the equally apolitical Michael Jordan—Republicans and Democrats both buy Nikes.

Personally, I think Woods should have explicitly boycotted the tournament. He could have done more single-handedly for the boycott than the senior classes of every college in the country. Indeed, most athletes have complied with the boycott. The Knicks refused to play a preseason game in Charleston, the Atlantic Coast Conference asked visiting teams competing in South Carolina to stay at hotels in North Carolina, and this weekend Serena Williams is withdrawing from a local tournament. Earlier this week, Lou Holtz, Eddie Folger, Tommy Bowden, and high profile coaches of other sports at Clemson and the University of South Carolina took part in the Get-in-Step march, a 120-mile cross-state trek to the capital to support the boycott. All of this is laudable. I am glad Holtz decided to use his star leverage to support the NAACP's cause.

Yet it is something of a relief that Woods, unlike most people enmeshed in the sports industry, can separate his humanity from his athletic capabilities.

At the end of the day, the essence of sport is sheer athletic prowess. Are athletes also role models? Yes. Do they have a heightened responsibility because they are in the limelight? Of course. But, we need to respect athletes who make the choice not to use their talent as a bully pulpit. Woods, by refusing to take a stance, has done more for America than if he had boycotted. He may break the trend of fans focusing on athletes' morals.

If we praise athletes who use their star status for good, we're augmenting their leverage, for better or for worse. We can't congratulate Williams with one hand and decry Rocker with the other. That would be having it both ways. Athletes are fallible human beings—if we want them do to great things for their communities, we have to accept that they will occasionally do bad things as well. We look up to them at our own discretion.

Admittedly, there is a natural link between American morality and American sport. Both foster intense loyalty, partiality, irrationality, and, most importantly, an intense desire to feel superior to others. But we must separate the two kinds of superiority. Is our society so neurotic that we can't admit bad people are good at other things? If Ivan Drago had beaten Rocky, it wouldn't have proved anything except that he was a better boxer that day.

Ty Cobb was the cruelest son of a bitch ever to play sports, but did little kids turn bad by watching him steal bases? The question would have been ridiculous to a baseball fan in the 1920s. No one thought of it. Cobb was just a baseball player.

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