Wednesday, April 15, 1998
Look in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s …
Ronaldo?
COLUMN: America’s golf star doesn’t shine like Brazil’s soccer
phenomBy Rob Kariakin
Well, the Masters came, the Masters went, and some dumpy-looking
guy walked away with a less-than-stylish green sportcoat. Yawn.
Now perhaps everyone can get off the Tiger Woods’ love train at
the next available station.
Nothing personal, buddy, but enough is enough already: get off
my TV, stay out of my sports page and stop showing up on the cover
of my Sports Illustrated every couple of weeks.
"Woods is clearly still wrestling with the ramifications of
being an athlete who has radically altered the notion of what’s
possible in sports," wrote Jaime Diaz in last week’s SI.
What?! Are we talking about Tiger here, or Atlas? Last time I
checked, the earth wasn’t balanced on Woods’ narrow shoulders.
Face it, folks, Tiger is not the next "one": that transcendent
athlete/social icon who touches the world and comes to symbolize
hope and greatness and all kinds of other uplifting nonsense (see
Jordan, Michael).
Nice guy? Sure, I’ll buy that. But that doesn’t change the fact
that Tiger Woods is not the world’s greatest athlete. That would be
Ronaldo.
"Ro-what-o?"
Ronaldo, baby. If you don’t already know the name, you will
after this summer’s World Cup. And then Nike will make sure you
never forget it.
Ronaldo is everything the next "one" needs to be: young (just
21), talented (reigning two-time world soccer player of the year),
handsome and charismatic. He even has the Jordan shaved-head thing
going.
Tiger? Come on: the man plays golf, for Christ’s sake!
I’m not even sure that qualifies him as an athlete. Let’s see,
you hit a ball, then walk leisurely after it. Somebody else finds
it for you, then you hit it again and walk. After doing this a
couple of times, you gently tap it into a hole in the ground.
No running, no physical contact, and the ball’s not moving.
Heck, they even have another guy to carry your stuff for you. If
it’s not a hot day, would these guys even break a sweat?
Compare this to true sports:
In hockey, you skate around non-stop, slapping at a moving puck
while the other team tries to knock the crap out of you.
In gymnastics, using only your own strength and agility, you
have to do a bunch of flips and twists at various heights above the
ground, then you have to land without bouncing. And if you fall
down and hurt yourself, you lose.
In swimming, you have to move as fast as you possibly can
through a far denser medium than you’re used to, all while making
sure you don’t drown.
And in soccer, you run up and down a field about the size of a
city block, doing things with your feet that most people couldn’t
do with their hands while other players run up and trip you. Time
outs? That’s for wimps. Frequent substitutions? Puh-leease. In the
World Cup, a team gets something like two subs: use those
frivolously, and a player who breaks a leg later will just have to
suck it up.
When was the last time somebody blew out an anterior cruciate
ligament playing golf? Or bled? Or broke something? Yeah, I know
those walking-related injuries can be a real bitch, but when the
worst injury possible is a blister, how can you claim you are
pushing yourself physically?
Hell, in golf, the audience puts their bodies on the line more
than the participants: how often do you see somebody in the gallery
get domed by an errant drive?
I’m sorry, but nothing you say is going to convince me that golf
is a sport or that its participants are athletes. It’s like
curling: dress it up however you want, but it’s still just a game.
Monopoly in a nicer setting.
What’s more, Woods may not even be the best at that game. After
six wins in his first 10 months as a pro, he hasn’t won a single
tournament in the United States in the last 10. None. Zero.
Zipporooni.
And this weekend, despite all the hype surrounding him leading
up to it, he finished eighth in the Masters.
Yes, he can be brilliant at times, but true greatness demands
consistency. Right now, Tiger isn’t showing it.
Ronaldo, on the other hand …
Last season with Barcelona, he lead the Spanish League with 34
goals, an average of almost one per game. The next-closest player
had only 25. This year, with a new team, in a new league and a new
country, he is again the leading scorer with 21. At that pace,
he’ll again top 30 goals. Anyone wanna bet he’s not player of the
year again?
Tuesday he had his team’s only two goals in a 2-1 UEFA (an
inter-league tournament in Europe – don’t worry about it) semifinal
win against Spartak Moscow.
A few weeks ago he knocked in the game winner against European
champion Germany, considered by most the world’s second-best team.
(The best? Why, Ronaldo’s Brazilian squad, of course.)
Both games came in cold, snowy weather, which (SAT analogy time)
is to a Brazilian what Tulsa is to UCLA basketball.
Consistency should be his middle name, except he doesn’t have
one.
Which brings up one of the intangibles necessary for a "great
one": all the really big stars come to be known by only one name.
Magic, Griffey, Pele, Bird. Ronaldo’s got this one covered by
default. (Yeah, yeah, Tiger’s a pretty good name, too.)
Another is a zest for life. Ruth had it. Namath had it. Ronaldo
has it.
During his years in Barcelona it was only strange when he wasn’t
seen out late at dance clubs with famous models. And late in
Barcelona is late: none of that lame 2 a.m. stuff; clubs there stay
open until five, and then you stumble off to after-hours parties
till the sun comes up. And that’s on a Wednesday.
Like Namath and Ruth, the man simply knows how to live. And
people love him for it.
Lastly, if an athlete is going to be the "one" that people
emulate, they’ve got to be able to emulate them. Despite the
advertising blitz, Tiger just doesn’t lend himself to the
imaginations of young people the way Jordan does. It’s not his
fault, its golf’s. Putting a polo shirt and a Swoosh hat on doesn’t
make a kid feel like Tiger Woods. But put him in a Brazil jersey,
and he is Ronaldo. If you don’t believe me, just see how many
yellow and green No. 9 jerseys you see walking around next
fall.
To sum up, then: Ronaldo, good; Tiger, bad. Well, not bad …
just, not "it."
Nothing personal.