If I’m not mistaken, Vanity Fair is the first mainstream publication to name Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley as the philandering role models who led Tiger astray. Here’s what it reports in this respect – as a sidebar on a multi-page spread of his mistresses – in this month’s issue:
When Tiger showed up in Vegas, he was always with Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley,” according to Las Vegas Review-Journal columnist Norm Clarke.
Years earlier, however, John Merchant had warned Woods to avoid Jordan and Barkley, saying of Jordan, “Stay away from that son of a bitch, because he doesn’t have anything to offer to the fucking world in which he lives except playing basketball.” Merchant adds, “Are they his black role models? You’ve got to be kidding me.” (vanityfair.com, March 31, 2010)
Merchant, his former attorney and adviser (who just happens to be black), is right of course. Indeed, reliable sources have told me many stories over the years about them playing wingmen as Tiger prowled for women at the Atlantis resort back home in The Bahamas.
But what Merchant probably fails to appreciate is that Michael and Charles gave Tiger the race cred he so desperately coveted. This was especially the case after he made a racial eunuch, if not a public spectacle, of himself in 1997 by insisting that he considers himself not Black but Cablinasian: a portmanteau of Caucasian (Ca), Black (bl), Indian (in), and Asian (Asian). And I’m sure he found validation in the fact that they both shared his penchant for gambling and white women of easy virtue.
Without question he has only himself to blame for the betrayal and infidelities that caused his notorious fall from grace. But I suspect even Tiger has come to realize that, instead of firing Merchant, he should have heeded his advice:
I guess, since Tiger did not invite them to this seminal press event, celebrity philanderers Michael Jordan and Charles Barkley will have to consider themselves no longer among his best and most-valued friends, eh….
[Tiger speaks, and says exactly what I told him to, TIJ, February 20, 2010]
I doubt rehab will do much to cure Tiger the cheetah. But I hope therapy helps him figure out, not only who he is (as a black man), but also what little value irrepressible playas (and gamblers) like Michael and Charles add to his life….
Related commentaries:
Tiger speaks…
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