Before the Olbermann v. Simmons thing asploded recently, I was asked during an interview for an upcoming E! television special on Tiger Woods to compare the celebrity of Woods to Muhammad Ali.
(’Champ, seen my waffle iron?)
I said Ali was the only enduring, authentic worldwide sports celebrity we’ll ever know1. His phenomena was just recent enough to benefit from technology-wrought global interconnectivity while missing sports as an end-all for hawking washing machines.
Today, the acknowledged reason Nike is in the golf business is its association with Tiger Woods. If Nike was around for Ali’s emergence, it’d be in the boxing biz.
With Woods (and Michael Jordan) as our guide, had Phil Knight fired up the waffle iron 20 years earlier, there’d be no Olbermann-Simmons debate.
Ali’s celebrity was authentic because his fame came from astonishing boxing skills and his being a genuine agent for social change. People were drawn to him organically, not because of a Buick billboard in Bakersfield. Yes, Ali understood how to market himself and his sport, but he wasn’t contrived.
Like Ali, Woods has had opportunities to assist the socially disadvantaged in a material way. Despite winning four times at whitewashed Augusta National, the most famous multi-ethnic athlete in history has done next to nothing to spotlight the club’s laughably lopsided demographic.
But if you think Ali would’ve been any different from Tiger had he exploded on the scene in ‘97, as Woods did at The Masters, you don’t know Tiger’s dad Earl.
In 1951, a brave badass named Earl Woods broke the Big Eight Conference color barrier as a baseball player at Kansas State. Before he died in 2006, Earl likened his son in public to Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and … Muhammad Ali.
He once called Tiger a, “humanitarian, very similar to that of Gandhi … he will be like an ambassador at large, without portfolio.”
It’s also well-documented before and after Tiger’s Thanksgiving accident that in private the golfer retained his father’s penchant for being outspoken, opinionated, inelegant and of course, infidelious. (In 2006, Earl told Karen Crouse of the NEW YORK TIMES, “marriage isn’t necessary in a mobile society.”)
Tiger inherited his personality from a man who challenged and defeated systematic racial inequality in sports. A man who also made it clear that he wanted his son to have a similar, if not more significant impact on societal change.
So if anyone in our history was ever positioned to grasp the baton from Ali, making his mark as a, “humanitarian, very similar to that of Gandhi … to be an ambassador at large,” it’d be Tiger, right?
If only for that dratted waffle iron.
But don’t blame Nike completely for inspiring Tiger to dumb down his personality in public for the benefit of head cover sales.
Here’s Tiger’s agent Mark Steinberg in an interview with SPORTSBUSINESS JOURNAL in 2002:
Steinberg said some of his disagreements with clients are over what they’re going to say on public matters. He said he’s vigilant about protecting his clients from being pulled into controversies because of their celebrity.
“It’s not right for an athlete to leverage his celebrity status to influence people,” he said. “What if he wasn’t a great golfer? Would anyone want to hear what he has to say?”
If Tiger was ever going to change, this would be the moment. But after his most recent stiffly insincere public statement, replete with crying Nike rep seated on the right hand of Tiger’s mother Kultida, don’t hold your breath.
As for Ali, I wish I could say he’s the greatest of all time.
I really do.
1 Per Richard Deitsch of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, Pele also deserves some consideration.
9:25 pm on March 9th, 2010
tiger sucks
9:28 pm on March 9th, 2010
Ali was worshiped worldwide by anti-American sports fans.
He was the primary athletic symbol of the civil rights movement.
He went to jail for his beliefs at the height of his professional career.
Tiger and Jordan were just guys compared to G.O.A.T.
10:20 pm on March 9th, 2010
Try phenomonon, not phenomena there. How often must you shame and humiliate your English teacher?
2:18 am on March 10th, 2010
Yo learn how to write a damn article!!
wtf is phenomena????
and another dumb article and dumb debate
7:25 am on March 10th, 2010
Forget phenomena.
‘Infidelious’ is the great non-word!
7:59 am on March 10th, 2010
Phenomenon is singular while phenomena is plural. Safire was correct that the singular should have been used in the article even if he did spelled it wrong himself in his comment.
This concludes the Anal Grammar Hour.
8:05 am on March 10th, 2010
This is ridiculous. Ali is the one sports figure for whom debates about whether he was the greatest at his particular sport are secondary as to whether he was the greatest sportsman. That is to say, Ali’s greatness transcended his accomplishments in the ring, plenty though they were. Can you say that about Tiger or Michael Jordan? Not a chance. Neither Tiger nor Jordan endured 1/100th the viciousness and pressure of worldwide social expectations that Ali did, especially after losing to Frazier in their first bout–after imprisonment and two years away from regular training. All Ali did after that was knock out Foreman, beat Frazier twice, and break Ken Norton’s jaw. Yes, Jordan had some classic duels with some of basketball’s contemporary greats, but the type of social expectations Jordan faced were to preserve the narrative, that his basketball greatness was The Greatest Ever. Ali was expected to win to affirm civil rights, the strength of an entire culture. Neither Jordan nor Woods want any part of that–they know they couldn’t handle it.
8:29 am on March 10th, 2010
Tiger wins! Just talking about it puts him on top of the list. Tiger, Ali…1-2
Tiger dominates the sports world in every way, fame, money, conversation, doen’t matter…he dominates.
And really this isn’t english class…put some hot women on here so we can use the phenomena word!!!
8:38 am on March 10th, 2010
Actually, the greatest basketball player ever and a man who really endured racism and vilification was Bill Russell. 11titles in 13 years, not to mention two NCAA championships with a mediocre supporting cast. He’s a great man on top of it. Class all the way.
9:30 am on March 10th, 2010
Ali did transcend sports, but he was also responsible for despicable attacks on Joe Frazier, repeatedly calling him the gorilla he was going to whip in Manila. He also repeatedly cheated on his wife despite his professed Muslim faith.
Ali was able to get away with much of this because he was a clown and he loved to work the media. He was a funny and charismatic guy. Yet I suspect things would have been different if he had to endure today’s media environment. Back then his antics were filtered through the mainstream media.
Ali also gained considerable sympathy for his illness.
As Mountain Jack points out, there are other like Bill Russell who endured racism as well and were much more impressive men. But, they didn’t have the charisma of an Ali, and they didn’t have the world stage of being the heavyweight champion of the world.
As Brooks points out, times are changing. The new media environment strips away some of the aura surrounding sports heroes. The days of Mickey Mantle are long gone.
9:40 am on March 10th, 2010
Just one clarification there, Chris, it was Norton who broke Ali’s jaw (not the other way around).
9:40 am on March 10th, 2010
Otherwise, I agree with you 100%.
10:14 am on March 10th, 2010
I know I’m going to be extremely unpopular for saying this. And maybe because I’m young (28y.o.) that this is my perspective but…. Wasn’t Ali such a polarizing figure not because he was being persecuted as a black man but as a Muslim? Joe Frazier, George Foreman, hell Joe Louis were for the most part accepted into much of society.
Ali was a member of a radical and often violent sect of the Islamic religion. Isnt that why he was persecuted? Not to say it was justified. But Ali essentially belonged to a terroristic sect that sold drugs, ran small time casinos and often acted as small time hoods in order to generate money. And at the front of all that was Ali, the primary bread winner to the Nation. The Nation in turn funded groups like The Black Mafia.
…I believe Ali was one of the greatest boxers (top 1-3) of all time. I believe that he was an enormous agent of change. But I question the notion that he was unjustly watched. While he didn’t assassinate anyone or blow up city blocks, his boxing purses certainly did.
And as for the comment to him being the greatest symbol and agent in the civil rights movement. Jackie Robinson’s fam would have something to say about that… He was everything Ali was without the arrogance, big mouth or the connection to terror.
11:01 am on March 10th, 2010
Some very salient comments in here guys. Great work.
G,
I agree with you 100% and would’ve mentioned Ali’s philandering and the Joe Frazier stuff but didn’t think it was all that applicable to the point I was making.
If Ali was around today, goodness knows we’d think differently of him.
11:02 am on March 10th, 2010
Anne,
I’m well-aware it isn’t a word. Made it up. Do it all the time.
11:34 am on March 10th, 2010
“…and his being a genuine agent for social change. ”
Nail on the head right here.
Say what you want about if you disagree with everything he did and said or agreed. It was bold and he put himself out there, win or lose. None of the athletes in the world today would make a stand like he did.
11:44 am on March 10th, 2010
Olberman is an idiot.
10:51 pm on March 10th, 2010
Brooks:
Yes. Thank you! I love made-up words. That’s why I said infidelious was ‘the great non-word’. I’m thinking infidelious could also be defined as
“showing a tendency to hate people who don’t believe in your God.”
4:54 am on March 15th, 2010
Kinda odd, but I actually think I have gained a newfound respect Tiger.
Mr Woods, live your life the way you choose, not in the box society puts you in! This article was SUCH a waste of my time.