Tiger Woods: Forgiven? By: Alyssa Robinson

By: Alyssa Robinson

Sunday, Tiger Woods won his first PGA tournament in over 30 months at Bay Hill.  In class yesterday we talked a lot about whether or not Tiger Woods is still associated with his nasty divorce that occurred over three years ago. 

A few other big names that come to mind when thinking about similar situations to me are: Kobe’s alleged rape and Lebron’s ‘decision’.  Lebron’s ‘decision’ is clearly the freshest of the three in my opinion but I think with all of them time healed.  Now I do agree that Tiger will always be associated with his nasty divorce, but the fact is when I watch an athlete compete I watch them because of their athletic abilities and not because of their background/home life.

I don’t have to agree with the different things these athletes do to be fans of them.  I think that with the spotlight on these athletes waiting for them to screw up, something is bound to happen.  Also you can’t please everyone; someone’s opinion that makes one person happy will make another person mad.  Back when we talked about Michael Jordan he had a controversial situation because he refused to give his opinion on a political question he was asked.  These athletes are paid to perform and it shouldn’t matter who their going to vote for in the up incoming election.

These athletes might be associated with a particular event, like Lebron and his ‘decision’ I hated him at first, but now it’s growing on me just as long as he doesn’t ever win a championship.  Much like Tiger, the fact that he is such a legend in the game of golf I am able to oversee his past mistakes and move on. 

Reading Nancy Lopez

The article by Jamieson (2008) dealt with how feminists during the time of Nancy Lopez’s reign on the golf course throughout the 70’s and 80 have had a hard time relating to her. The way I understood Jamieson’s arguments was that they kind of resented her for the way she kind of wanted to be normal and put in to a higher class of just your average every day Latino. This in a way relates back to what we talked about a few weeks back in that athletes of a different ethnicity besides white should represent their ethnic background in a way that will make people happy. Therefore when other ethnic woman see Nancy Lopez marrying two white males in Tim Melton and Ray Knight as the article Jamieson (2008) portrays, this gives them the idea that they are being betrayed in some way.

My feelings on these notions are that people are looking too far into this and should try to keep athletes on a level playing field as everyone else. Although it seems hard to do, we must realize that athletes are human beings just like us if a latina woman like Nancy Lopez wants to be a professional golfer in a primarily white dominate sport then we should let her do it. And to the fact of her assimilating herself into a more high class society than what latinos are used to, I would think that this would be setting a good example for young Latinas that they really can be whatever they want. In all fairness, Nancy Lopez was simply doing what she loved in a time where not just latino women had trouble gaining respect from society but so did women in general.

I also found it surprising about this article in how Nancy Lopez in her first few years on the pro tour was just as successful as Tiger Woods during his first few years on the tour. However, I doubt that she got nearly as much publicity as he did and yet probably a fair amount of negative publicity for leaving the game at times to have children with her Caucasian husband. Much like how Tigers image was largely based on him being a loving husband and father(in the early years) and had that all come crashing down on him during the incidents in November of 2009. As a result, I feel that both Nancy Lopez and Tiger Woods are more subjective to criticism not because they were the best at their game during their time period but because they were of a minority race that is not as generally accepted in white male dominant society.

~Max Householder

March Madness

With the upcoming NCAA basketball tournament I thought about what we have previously discussed in class regarding how unequal women’s sport are to men’s in terms of television coverage.  The next four weeks are the most television coverage any women’s sport league will receive throughout this year.  In saying that television coverage of the tournaments are still not equal.

While researching the amount of coverage women’s sports get compared to men’s I came across a very interesting article on aaf publications.  Within the article it broke down various aspects of the coverage between men’s and women’s basketball.  The article brought up the differences in camera use, editing, replay, announcing, terminology, and how the differences of that resulted in women’s games having a lower quality to them production-wise.  This is something women’s basketball does not have a say in and is definitely a negative for them.  Not only do they see very little broadcasting of their games, but when they do television networks are broadcasting them at an unfavorable value?  This to me is a bigger issue then the amount of games being broadcasted; if the quality of the broadcast is not present the quantity does not matter as much.  The bigger issue then becomes how the television audience’s perceptions of women’s athletics are skewed because of lower broadcasting standards.  I think television networks like ESPN need to and should reevaluate the quality of their work at the end of each season, and always look in what ways do they need to improve.

-Tony Fritsch