| | |  Editorials | Opinions | December 2009 
How Tiger Can Fix His Image
 Matt King - BleacherReport.com
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December 04, 2009
Tiger Woods has never been in a worse lie than the one he’s in right now.
He cheated on his wife, possibly with multiple women, with more alleged mistresses popping up every day. He crashed his car under extremely suspicious circumstances after what now seems to have been a fight with his wife over his infidelity. Yet through all of the craziness that has unfolded in the past week, Tiger has been surprisingly silent. Only a voice mail implicating him in the affair has sparked a statement from the golfer, or more likely from his legal team.
With every day that Tiger stays away from the very public eye he’s blaming his problems on, things seem to get worse for him. He hasn’t committed an actual crime, but he has already been convicted in the court of public opinion where we the people are the judge, jury and executioners.
So what can Tiger do to fix this? If he’s going to repair his reputation, he’s going to have to learn from the many celebrities who have paved this road before him.
The David Letterman approach
Be proactive. Letterman broke the news himself that he had had affairs with members of his staff. Sure, he was being blackmailed for it, but the point is that he brought it to the media instead of being blindsided by it all. Since Tiger doesn’t have that luxury, he needs to go the extra mile. Don’t just talk about it, talk about it often. Go on Oprah, talk about how your dad pushing you to be the best at everything led to this. It doesn’t have to be true, but people have to buy it. Bare your soul. Shed some tears. Remorse, real or not, does wonders for public sympathy.
The Kobe Bryant approach
Hold a press conference, apologize to your family, friends, fans, and -- most of all -- to your wife. Kobe knew that words are nice, but a rock the size of Gary Coleman is better. Then after that, don’t speak a word of it. Instead, go out and be even better than you were before. Kobe changed his jersey number; Tiger should start wearing blue on Sundays. The point is that people are suckers for success. Winning solves everything. Just look at A-Rod. Who cares if he admitted to using steroids at the beginning of the season? He helped the Yankees win the World Series again!
The Mel Gibson approach
Back in 2006, Gibson was arrested for driving under the influence and went off on a crazy anti-Semitic rant. Since then, what have you heard from Mel? Nothing. Nada. He dropped off the radar. Only now does he have two movies coming out in 2010. He waited three whole years to let the heat die down. After three years, people tend to forget the crazy and focus on the Braveheart. I’m not saying Tiger needs to disappear for three years, but take some time off. Take long enough and he’ll come back to people who don’t even care what he did anymore, they just want to see him swing a golf club again.
Whatever approach he uses, Tiger has his work cut out for him. He went from being one of the most boring superstars in recent memory to having his life scrutinized more closely than Britney Spears'. And if you think fixing things with the public will be hard, he still has to get the forgiveness of his wife, who may or may not be deadly with a golf club.
Actually, now that I’m thinking about it, he should probably just stop what he’s doing and put a down payment on that giant ring right now. |
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