How Quickly the Mighty Fall

You've undoubtedly heard the old adage, "the bigger they are the harder they fall?" Well if you have then you'll likely agree that no one has personified that statement better in recent history than golf icon Tiger Woods. After the discovery of his 'secret life' and the eventual joke that his life has seemed to become, Woods announced that he will be taking an indefinite leave of absence from the golf tour. With the announcement of this decision he suddenly became an anathema to all the company's for whom he was endorsing products and now it seems that perhaps he will never again recapture the luster that once surrounded him. But why is that? Why is he so different now than he was before his SUV hit a tree and the whole sordid tale of his private life came tumbling out?

What is it about celebrity that is so fleeting? One moment you can be the poster child for everything that is good and in the next you are being treated like the scum you find floating on top of a swimming pool that hasn't been cleaned in a long while. Tiger Woods was long viewed as a model of hard work and perseverence. He earned his place as a champion in golf by working at it. He wasn't like many other players who are at the top of their game in their respective sport who mouth off about as often as they win. Woods was humble and soft-spoken and a man who played well even when he wasn't at his best. He's had his highs and lows throughout his career and it was part of what made him a household name when he first burst onto the golfing scene.

Parents in particular liked to (apparently) use him as an example of what hard work and dedication could get you. They liked to tell their kids to emulate Woods and become someone 'respectable' like him. Now I say 'apparently' because now that this scandal has broken (and continues to break) it appears that parents are all up in a huff about the fact that Woods has 'done this'. I would simply ask why parents are using complete strangers to be inspirations for their kids in the first place. Tiger Woods's public persona was no doubt a model for many to want to emulate but the private life is where the problems lay and now that the private has become public, there is the suddent and fierce desire to break any and all ties to Woods. Now parents are behaving as if Woods has betrayed their trust somehow and are all ready to show their disdain for his actions and transgressions.

But what surprises me is that people still believe that what we see in public of celebrities is how they really must be in private as well. Celebrity is a fleeting thing and what has become apparent to me as the Tiger Woods 'situation' has continued to evolve and grow worse is that as quickly as we like to build up a celebrity, the public loves to tear them down just as quickly if not faster. Gone are the stories about how he worked hard to achieve the level of success he's achieved; now Woods serves more readily as a punchline for jokes than anything else. And to think, a simple car accident is what led to the disclosure of all these problems to the public.

I think any celebrity out there needs to take notice and be wary. I say this because there are undoubtedly many many more out there with similar (if not worse) transgressions out there and it can take something so small to let it out. What celebrities (be they sports stars or entertainment personalities) need to take notice that if someone as admired as Tiger Woods can suddenly become a bane to companies and the like then it's no different for anyone else. As much as we love our public figures, we love tearing them down since I guess it makes us (the general public) feel a little better knowing that the people we see on television or playing in the big game are not so different from us. That can be a good thing and a bad thing.