If You Root for Tiger, You Probably Want the Pats to Win

Like FDR playing a round with Jesus.

Not sure if anyone else saw this (or cares), but...have you seen this?! Un-effing believable. Do you realize that Tiger Woods could conceivably tie or break the career majors record by the end of next season? When, oh by the way, he'll only be 34 years old?

Lots of people whose interests otherwise mesh with mine regularly roll their eyes when I get worked up like this about Woods. They don't understand how I could possibly choose to spend a weekend afternoon actively watching golf (as opposed to inactively watching it and using the soothing sounds of a Jim Nantz whisper to fall asleep on the couch). They certainly don't get why I get that excited when the CBS golf music comes on. Or why you're liable to hear me screaming at the TV on a spring Saturday as Woods makes a move up the leaderboard or sinks an unmakable birdie. Golf just isn't that interesting to most people.

To be honest, it wasn't always that interesting to me. I was someone who derided it as slow and stodgy and white and boring. I was happy to dismiss it and had come to regard it with mild contempt. But that changed with Tiger. The numbers are staggering. The excess of the praise he earns from people who understand his sport inspires near disbelief. And to watch him amidst a context of singularity, of indelible history, is transfixing. How can you not love golf?

Now, objectively, Tiger Woods isn't really that great. At least, as a human. He's charitable, and he works hard. I greatly admire those things. But he is apolitical; he doesn't say anything all that interesting; and his sense of humor, to whatever extent it would amuse someone, is largely reserved for his inner circle. Further, he's divorced himself from any discussion or even identity related to race, something which I find disappointing. I realize that just because he has dark skin and excels at a sport he need not inherit an obligation to serve as a vehicle for racial discussions or change. But to deny his unique circumstance--as he does through his exaltation of consumerism above all else--seems, to be kind, dishonest. People said similar things about Michael Jordan, and they weren't without merit, but for this man, with his background, dominating this sport--it is something different.

Oddly, you might say that Tiger Woods's shortcomings make his success and popularity even greater. Personally, I think of it as such: knowing what I know about him, and feeling as I do about his personality, that I continue to rapturously consume anything having to do with his exploits on the golf course only affirms his transcendence. And that is why he changed golf. To watch Tiger Wood is to witness history, and as a sports fan, I have yet to find any circumstance as enthralling.

Guided by an endless fascination with the historic, I run into problems when that passion conflicts with countervailing values. We've already covered the Woods dilemma. I was in a similar circumstance with Barry Bonds, a sports figure whose Herculean feats were so mesmerizing that I was undoubtedly the last person to accept that he was using steroids. He's changed his workout routines. It's natural for the body to get larger as you get older. Steroids don't help his hitting eye. I said everything. I just couldn't relinquish the pure excitement I recalled as I woke up each morning and consulted San Francisco box scores, something that this non-baseball-fan loved doing. And even now, having realized that Barry Bonds is a terrible person who cheated to accomplish things that probably aren't natural, I still warmly remember the early spring of 2002 when I hopped around my college dorm room while contemplating that after two games, Bonds was on pace for 324 home runs. I knew he wouldn't belt 300, even, but 100? I wanted to buy into the magic of history.

And so it was that I spent this entire football season quasi-obsessed with the Patriots. Their games were appointment television because they were led by a Michigan Man, their coach was hilarious in his lugubriousness, and, oh by the way, they were realistically pursuing one of the most hallowed goals in sports. I am not that much of an NFL fan, but I watch a lot of football all the same because I like sports and I am a red-blooded American man. The Patriots' moment was not lost on me this year.

Of course, following the Patriots, and on some level rooting for them, led me to internal conflict, as my intense interest in sports history always does. Rooting for the Pats in any way meant rooting for a team from racist and Mickey Mouse Boston. It meant rooting for a quarterback who proudly supported George Bush even after his first term of ineptitude. It meant enjoying fair weather. And still, I was undeterred, the lure of seeing some rare athletic thing surpassing all other impulses. I couldn't help myself.

I've reflected about this a great deal since the Super Bowl match up was determined a few weeks ago. As you have read, hoping that the Patriots accomplish something historic has not been without its complications for me. And, in diving this common thread that ran or runs through my interest in Tiger and Bonds, or Michael, or now the Pats, I came to think that I have perhaps made too many compromises at times in the name of witnessing the uncommon. I am not at all apologetic about my adoration of Tiger ()--whatever complicating negatives he presents, they are far outweighed by the awesome extent of his greatness. But that's not the case with New England. I can't comfortably support a Republican who has quite publicly abandoned his child, and I sure as shit cannot countenance endorsing yet another triumph for Boston.

I've long been uncomfortable with the Giants because I don't really understand how they beat good teams, I don't like Tom Coughlin, and I literally cannot comprehend how a team with a mentally challenged quarterback has made it to the Super Bowl. But having said all that: I grew up with Rodney Hampton; I appreciate LT, in part because he, himself, was a towering figure of history; and I want Amani Toomer to get a ring. So while my head says that the Patriots will win, and my heart yearns for history, my soul has triumphed in these intervening two weeks. If nothing else, a Giants win will argue for football's inclusion in the Special Olympics.

Oh, and one more thing: baaaalllllllinnnnnnnn'!

- Jim Jones, "We Fly High (Giants Remix)"