The “Hey, It’s Tiger” US Weekly voicemail released on Wednesday certainly points to more alleged Tiger Woods affairs. Jaimee Grubbs says she received the voicemail not long before the alleged domestic incident and following car crash this past week. The US Weekly voicemail goes on with a voice that is strikingly similar to Tiger Woods. “I need you to do me a huge favor. Can you please, uh, take your name off your phone? My wife went through my phone and maybe calling you.”
It’s startling evidence in a case against Tiger Woods concerning his alleged affairs. Tiger Woods personal life has suddenly become even more public as the rumors of his affairs continue to gain in strength.
Jaimee Grubbs was a cocktail waitress turned reality television star on VH1’s “Tool Academy”.
She released the “Hey, it’s Tiger” US Weekly voicemail and now it’s on the homepage of the US Weekly website at www.usmagazine.com. Jaimee Grubbs says she doesn’t just have voicemails in the US Weekly story. She also has hundreds of text messages on her phone from Tiger Woods. Some of the Tiger Woods text messages are pretty graphic. “I am going to wear you out” is one of the alleged Tiger Woods text messages sent to Jaimee Grubbs.
The Tiger Woods alleged affairs are becoming the search of the internet. There is more than enough interest to keep the story going past the normal news cycle let alone the release of the US Weekly voicemail. New information of alleged Tiger Woods affairs continues to come out. Will other women come out and how will we ever know if all or any of the Tiger Woods affairs are legitimate? Until someone has video we probably won’t ever know for sure. We probably shouldn’t need to know because it’s not really any of our business. Curiosity killed the cat and it certainly isn’t helping Tiger Woods in the case of several alleged affairs with various women.
Can voice analysts listen to the “Hey, It’s Tiger” US Weekly voicemail and determine if the voice is consistent with that of Tiger Woods? Is there anyone out there who can mimic Tiger Woods enough to leave a voicemail that sounds so much like him? Could there be any other reason, if it was Tiger Woods on the voicemail, that he would leave a voicemail on Jaimee Grubbs cell phone asking her to make these accomodations if there wasn’t anything going on?
These are questions that don’t currently have answers. The Tiger Woods affairs are becoming the dominant stories of the internet unfortunately. Many continue to search and do their own CSI work although no crime has been committed excluding the car incident.
People are curious because Tiger Woods has been branded as such a family guy even though he should have been branded exclusively as a great golfer. Nobody can ever doubt that because his athletic prowess has been defined on the field. The marketing of pro athletes though seems to fall into making that person out to be some super human person as well as athlete. In an age of how can we spin and brand something it just seems completely irrelevant whether he’s a great person or not. But in sports, we all want to know who we are rooting for. Getting inside to find out who the person is can be sometimes relevant in our hopes to see that athlete prevail. We don’t want to root for the bad guys. We want our athletes to be great athletes and great people, too. Although some definitely find happiness in rooting for the bad guys. The late great Dale Earnhardt was an example of that.
All of this seems to go back to that whole role model discussion and it’s relevance several years ago. Should kids look up to an athlete like Tiger Woods for being a great person in addition to a great golfer? Parents should certainly teach their childen to look up to athletes as athletes and that’s it. Putting unrealistic expectations on people you don’t know can have some major fallout. I am not saying Tiger Woods shouldn’t be a role model for kids because his work ethic is obviously top notch. But let this be a lesson if these allegations are true that people are just people and sometimes even the greatest athletes make huge mistakes.
Sometimes those same athletes do things we wouldn’t want our kids to do off the field or course in this matter. I am not even saying Tiger Woods was wrong to have affairs if that’s really what happened at all. I don’t want to judge Tiger Woods but I would hope that people learn that athletes aren’t always good people just because they can hit a golf ball. Athletes also aren’t evil people just because they have affairs. It’s not in our interest to judge but we do have control over whether we choose to put an athlete on a pedestal or not and why. If you are going to value Tiger Woods do it because he’s a good golfer and leave it at that. It’s the same hopes you should have for Kobe Bryant, LeBron James and Peyton Manning. Are they good people off the field or court? Why does it matter? It shouldn’t. Admire them for the way they compete and shake hands after a good game. Try not to read into it and decide they are undoubtedly great people off the court because of that.
Who knows what went on inside Tiger’s marriage or if his wife Elin was also cheating if these alleged Tiger Woods affairs are true? As a society, we tend to judge people for their actions without having walked a mile in their shoes. The fact that Tiger Woods could have had several affairs is certainly a juicy rumor and makes us weigh the issue of infedlity and why someone who looked so squeaky clean could pull something like that off.
Do we feel we’ve been duped because we fell for the gazillion reports on Tiger Woods being such a good guy. Whether it was ESPN, FOX, CBS, The Golf Channel or many of the national television outlets, Tiger always seemed to come out in the end with a great spin. Much like you would expect from a great golfer. Was that because there was no negative information to go with at that point or was the collective media duped as well by the branding and marketing of the golfing sensation. Or did the non-bias media just fall in love with the guy like many other Americans who have now apparently been cheated on, too? If the alleged Tiger Woods affairs are true, a lot of us have been fooled. We fell for it if that’s the case. We all wanted him to be a good guy and it hurts when you see your favorite athlete turn out to be something other than what you pictured him as.
If John Daly would have been rumored to have affairs would we have been that shocked? Absolutely not considering his battles with other additions and his other lifestyle choices. But Tiger Woods? A guy who has been branded or brands himself as the good guy of golf? Or is it our fault to put those unrealistic expectations on him? Do we inadvertently brand athletes in our own way because we need to see a super human hero of golf? It’s just unrealistic when it comes down to it.
All of this certainly will provide a little food for thought in how we put our athletes on a pedestal for other things than just being an athlete. Tiger is not yet guilty and we may never know the entire truth in what happened concerning his alleged affairs. I say we don’t even need to know that. We just need to take this information, process it for what it is and realize that people are human. We forget the human element or tend to when someone does something in sports that seems beyond our human capablities. Tiger’s just like us and prone to the same errors even though he looks mistake free on the golf course.
Perhaps the Woods family will work things out despite the stress that comes with the alleged Tiger Woods affairs and get things straightened out without ever going public. Good for them if that happens. What society should do in turn is to no longer build up athletes as if they are super human. Tiger Woods puts his pants on the same way that you and I do. Although if the alleged rumors are correct, he takes them off a bit quicker than some.
