Our few lasting thoughts from this whole Tiger Woods thing now that he (sort of) came clean and admitted to a "transgression."
1) A mistake is an errant tee shot. It is even a car accident. Cheating on your wife countless times over a period of years is more than a mistake. It's a conscious, calculated decision with life-altering consequences. While his apology seemed fairly sincere and was well-crafted, we're still not sure he quite gets how big of a deal this is. And we had better not find out he was only admitting to a relative rise in sea level resulting in deposition of marine strata over terrestrial strata. Then again, if you read that definition carefully ...
2) Those who think he will be able to rehab his image are partially correct. If Kobe Bryant can come back, Tiger can come back. But this will always be something attached to his name. His image, no matter how much it is rehabbed, will never go back to what it was. It just can't. Too many people saw him one way and now know something that changes that perception. We don't doubt, though, that people will still admire Tiger Woods the golfer in much the same way they have before.
3) Athletes should stop trying to have it both ways. Either get married and have kids and honor that, or stay single and be realistic about the lifestyle to which you have access.
4) It's been an interesting stretch for Gillette athletes, with Thierry Henry's hand ball, Derek Jeter's World Series title and Sportsman of the Year (#thelegendcontinues) and Tiger Woods', well, you know. Roger Federer better be at home planning something pretty special right now. Something with a night in Hong Kong, a human-sized hamster wheel, a pair of chaps and a pan flute. For starters.
*Ron Artest used to drink up all the Hennessy you've got on your shelf ... at halftime of games. Now that's ... that's ... wow. That's something you do if you drive the Zamboni. That's not for an NBA forward. (Bonus points for knowing why this applies to the chosen photo).
*Minnesota had best claim a victory tonight against Miami, or its NCAA resume could look mighty thin at the end of another season in the mediocre Big Ten.
*There are 120 teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision of the NCAA. We count 34 bowl games this year, comprising 68 teams. That means 56.7 percent of teams in the FBS play in a bowl game. Not only that, but there are 63 teams in the 6 major conferences by our count (SEC, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, Pac-10, Big East). Last year 43 major conference schools played in bowl games. That's 68 percent of teams in those six conferences. That's slightly more than 2 in every 3 teams. Those are shockingly even more favorable odds than making the NBA or NHL playoffs. We think about this pretty much every December, and each time it's still mind-blowing.
