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There are so many events that I never think I will see.  I did not think I would ever see Tiger Woods looking so ordinary like he did last Friday.  I know this story has been covered from about a billion different ways.  People saw his apology from about the same number of viewpoints.  I figured it was time to add mine.  I am not a golf fan but I am a Tiger Woods fan.  If Tiger was in a final I found myself tuning in for a while and sometimes for hours.  I do not play golf and what I am about to write is just my opinion.  This is not about facts but just my opinion and questions I have now more than ever.

It is fun for some to gossip about what women Tiger had affairs with.  It may not be right but sex always and I say always sells.  It has been that way forever and ever.  I do not care who he slept or sleeps with.  It is not my business and it is not your business.  I was amused by all of the fuss about what type of conference he had and who was or was not there.  The guy did not owe fans nor any media people an apology.  So why all of the grousing about not being allowed to ask questions?  Get over it.  Some were upset that he read it.  You’re kidding me right?  People write and read speeches all of the time.  Have you ever been to a funeral?  Should a minister not be allowed to read from his script?  How many great political speeches have been written and then read.  Does that really make them less sincere?  I think not.  All of this stuff is just plain silly to me.  Most is not my concern nor do I care.

My concerns have to do with another question that may get larger down the road.  I cannot shake it yet.  Has Tiger Woods ever used any PEDS?  I know that he said no in his speech.  All athletes deny they have ever used steroids or peds.  Marion Jones denied over and over and then admitted so and went to prison.  I was a Marion Jones fan as well.  For me that is the real question and concern.  I think Tiger will come back and he may once again dominate golf.  People have and will forgive him.  He now looks more mortal and like one of us (not really but you get what I mean right).

This is not an accusation; just a concern and his apology brought it up more for me.  When the story of Tiger’s infidelity came up his agent Mark Steinberg did not deny and said little.  When there was mention that one of Tiger’s doctors was known for using HGH.  There was a strong denial from Steinberg that Woods had ever used steroids.  So keep the name Tony Galea in your memory bank.  He treated Tiger for his knee injury and has worked with numerous athletes.  He has also taken HGH personally.  He does unique treatments like the platelet-rich plasma injections he used on Tiger’s knee.  This is not against PGA rules.  The FBI and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police are investigating him.  His employee, Mary Anne Catalano is said to be co-operating with the FBI.  This is similar to how BALCO came about.

Now let’s go back in history.  One day I turned on my TV and saw Woods strolling down the course and I thought I was looking at an NFL defensive back not a golfer.  I could not believe how big he was.  The announcer said that Tiger puts so much torque on his swing with his upper body that it put much stress on his knees.  We all know by now that peds build a person up and then eventually they tear a person down.  Everyone has talked about Tiger and his competitiveness, his super desire to be the best ever.  There is that and then his own words at his apology announcement.  Woods said, “I stopped living by the core values that I was taught to believe in.  I knew my actions were wrong but I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply.  I never thought about who I was hurting.  Instead I thought only about myself.  I ran straight through the boundaries that a married couple should live by.  I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to.  I felt that I had worked hard my entire life and deserved to enjoy all the temptations around me.  I felt I was entitled.  Thanks to money and fame I didn’t have to go far to find them.  I was wrong.”

Tiger is the one athlete that may be bigger than the game.  In his fourteen years, the PGA purses have gone from 65.9 million to 277.3 million.  Is CBS going to do an investigation?  How about the PGA commissioner?  Take a look at the previous paragraph. “I knew my actions were wrong but I convinced myself that normal rules didn’t apply.”  I hope Tiger finds peace and I hope my concerns are unfounded.  Whom Tiger cheated with is none of my business but if he cheated in golf, that is a question that is fair game.

Well, so much for Peyton Manning being called the greatest ever.  I hope you were not near that bandwagon when people began leaping off with three minutes to go in the game.  Tracy Porter picked off Manning and sealed the victory and maybe two quarterback’s legacies.  You all know that Porter picked off Brett Favre in the NFC Championship and got a pick six against Manning.  The talk is that Manning is a great regular season quarterback but his record is only 9-9 in postseason play.  I do not know nor care what others try to make his legacy stand as a quarterback.  I do know that he will always be the all time favorite son in New Orleans.  Peyton was born there and went to high school there and there will be Saints fans always grateful that he helped deliver a Super Bowl victory to the former Aints.  There is already talk that this young Saints team could be on its way to a mini dynasty.  Drew Brees may play another five years or more. 

According to some you may as well find a spot in Canton for Sean Payton as he becomes the latest genius head coach.  It is too early for that but let’s give Sean his due, he coached a heck of a game and it was obvious he came to win.  So much for the Colts staying in the same hotel and all of that they have been there before advantage.  Payton was aggressive and Coach Caldwell too conservative for my taste.  The Colts will deny but the two games they gave away instead of trying to go undefeated sent a bad precedent.

I thought the turning point came in the first half when the Colts held on fourth down on their goal line.  Instead of picking up a first down and running out the clock they turned the ball back to the Saints which led to a field goal and cut the lead to 10-6 at halftime.  In the first half Garrett Hartley was huge in keeping New Orleans in the game.  Marques Colston could not be covered in the first half either.  Pierre Thomas definitely made a name for himself and demonstrated why Reggie Bush is mostly a special teams player and situational back

So at halftime the Colts had to believe they would go in and make adjustments and take control in the second half. There is not much to say about the halftime fireworks show.  I am racking my brain trying to figure out which rock act from the sixties or seventies is still left out there. Back to the game; Sean Payton stunned the world with his successful onside kick and then I think we knew we were in for a game.  I did not understand the field goal attempt by the Colts and Matt Stover.  Stover had not had a field goal over fifty yards since, well since he was well under the forty-two plus years he is now.  He did get a Super Bowl record being the oldest player to ever play in a Super Bowl.  This was the point where I felt the Saints were going to win the game.  Congratulations to the Saints and their fans.  This is another thing I never thought I would live long enough to see.  My whole life I only remember one person ever admitting he was a Saints fan.  So Justin, if you are out there somewhere, enjoy.

What a playoff run for the Saints.  They beat three Super Bowl winning quarterbacks in a row, Warner, Favre and Manning.  Drew Brees completed an astounding 72% of his passes with eight touchdowns and zero interceptions while racking up 732 yards.  Brees won the Super Bowl MVP award and gave himself a huge boost towards a Hall of Fame career if he continues for three or four years at this pace.  He already has 30,646 passing yards, 202-110 touchdowns to interceptions. He came to the Saints in 2006 and his lowest touchdown total is 26.  Funny how life works out sometime.  It seems like the Chargers had decided Drew was not their quarterback of the future and he basically held the job until Phillip Rivers was ready to go.  In the past a top quarterback would not pick New Orleans as the place to go as a free agent.  Yet, Brees does and has the good fortune to hook up with Sean Payton and also the good fortune to not play for Norv Turner.  The Chargers are set to sink with Norv.  He has a 90-98-1 record in 12 years as a head coach and has four teams in the playoffs in those twelve years.  The Chargers fired Marty Schottenheimer because he could not win in the playoffs.  Norv Turner is 3-3 in the playoffs and is rewarded with a contract extension.  Yes sir, life can be interesting.  Have fun Drew and no one would blame you if you were to say, I told you so.

Black History month is here and, for many of you that have listened to us on SportsNetUSA.net and to Friday Nite Mics, you have heard us discuss the plight of black athletes and coaches on a variety of topics. We have discussed Negro baseball and have wondered out loud how good some of the old Hall of Famers would have been in baseball if they would have had to face every athlete of their time. If we go back in time we have wondered how many NCAA Championships would have been won by certain teams if segregation had not been the law of the land. We still wonder about golf (country club) policies across this country that, in 2010, some clubs are still closed to people of color.

As for coaches of color, no one has hollered louder than TitleIX and the Buddha of Babble about equality in the coaching ranks for college and professional teams. So to all of the great athletes of our time, the ones from the past and to those of you in the future, we throw in our thoughts and the thoughts of others on Black History Month:

Here’s a link to “Top 75 Althletes and Pioneers of Sports Inclusion” an article written by Leland Stien III originally published by the Los Angeles Sentinel.  http://www.afrogolf.com/top75blackathletes.html

I just love when someone uses that word.  It is so harsh.  They cheated on their taxes, they cheated on their spouses and they cheated on their tests. YIKES !!!!! Can you imagine anyone cheating in football, baseball, ice hockey, basketball, sorry there are no enforceable rules in basketball ….

A cheater is defined as: one who acts dishonest, to elude by trickery or deception, lying.  So once again the world of technology has set golfers against each other in one of the last of the gentlemen sports; yes, Phil has been called a cheater. That’s right, Phil Mickelson has been branded a cheater by other pros because he is using a club that is within the rules, but which skirts the boundaries of acceptability according to technology rules.

That’s right, MR. TITLE IX, that aspect of sports that you keep protecting on FNM is now slithering its ugly bite into one of the last bastions of fair play. What is wrong with you technological geeks who keep thinking that the changing of the accessories is beneficial to the game? Please do not answer with the traditional: “well maybe they should still be playing with …….” Advancement is fine, but just as we have advanced with our automobiles, none of thinks that we should have cars that do a thousand miles an hour with roads that are filled with stop, stop, stop and go traffic.

So why do you and your cohorts feel that the constant change of the accessories will improve the sport? Why not just try to improve the athlete in a non-controversial way?  Or maybe you think it is fine that an athlete is called a; rogue, confidence man, quack, charlatan, conniver, fraud, beguiler, deceiver, trickster, inveigler, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, four-flusher, a shill, fake, pretender, hypocrite, con man, shark ….can’t use shark.

Gentlemen, awake from your world of metal clubs, belly putters, softer covered golf balls and GPS yardage finders, and realize that there are certain games that should be left alone. So what if you are not as strong and accurate as the next guy. So what if you cannot putt as well as everyone on the course. So what if your game is just a little south of John Daly’s.  THEN QUIT… or you could just enjoy the game you have when you head out to the golf course. And please, do not try to walk around the hazard if the rule of the game is bad for the spirit of the game, because then the rule should be changed not just bypassed. So please geeks, understand that your world of technology is ruining this game and other games as well.

I’ll tell you what; let’s give the best players of today’s game of golf some semi-antiquated equipment, persimmon woods, standard putters and golf balls that are under wound, and let us watch them play the game and see if the quality of the sport degenerates. If it doesn’t, then let us look at non-domed stadiums and allowing the sports to be played in the elements they were dealt. If we do that, then maybe when we try to discuss the greats of the generations we all seem able to relate to, there might be a sense of equality because they all played a very similar game. Then, the only ones who can be pointed at and called CHEATERS are the ones that broke the clear-cut rules of the game.