0:05

Oh,

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lessons from the world's top professors

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anytime, any place, world

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history examined and science explained.

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This is one day university

0:21

Welcome, and

0:26

we're back on the untold history

0:28

of sports in America. I'm

0:31

your host, Mike Coscarelli. Today

0:33

we examined possibly the most American

0:36

thing about sports cheating.

0:39

Growing up as a sports fan in this country,

0:41

I was coming of age during the golden

0:43

age of professional cheaters. From

0:45

college booster scams to steroids

0:48

in baseball to one of today's subjects,

0:50

Lance Armstrong. I got

0:52

to root for the best of them. What a wonderful

0:54

time to be a kid. Here's Matt.

1:02

A few lectures ago, I made my case

1:04

for The Bad News Bear. Is this the greatest sports

1:06

movie of all time? And one of the things

1:08

I mentioned is that the film shows the

1:10

propensity to cheat in American

1:13

sports. Amanda Worlortzer

1:15

strikes out the opposition by throwing the

1:17

spit ball, which is most definitely

1:19

against the rules in little league baseball.

1:22

Well, today, I want to explore cheating very

1:25

broadly defined in recent

1:27

American sport history. But it's more

1:29

than that. I want to consider heroism

1:32

and and and hero doom in recent

1:34

sport history. We turn athletes

1:37

into heroes. But what happens

1:39

when it turns out that our heroes

1:42

are cheaters when they are not what

1:44

they appear to be. We

1:46

are going to focus on two athletes today,

1:49

Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods

1:52

to larger than life athletes who accomplished

1:55

incredible things and were worshiped by

1:57

millions. But these

1:59

are two athletes who became mired in cheating

2:02

scandals, though it's very different types

2:04

of cheating. I'm not going to

2:06

moralize today, but I'm going to

2:08

tell you why I think we care so

2:10

much about their cheating, or really,

2:13

I suppose I'm trying to prompt you to ask

2:15

yourself that question, why do we care

2:17

or or do you care? So think

2:19

about that as we go. All

2:22

right, we begin with the sport of cycling and

2:25

Lance Armstrong. We

2:28

talked about the passion that Americans had for

2:30

cycling at the end of the nineteenth century.

2:32

This was the air of the great scorcher, Major

2:35

Taylor and the White wheelman who

2:37

challenged him. But then

2:39

the automobile was invented, and so for

2:41

most of the twentieth century, cycling

2:44

was a very minor sport in the

2:46

United States, very popular in

2:48

Europe, but not in the US. This

2:51

began to change in six

2:54

when the American Greg Lamande he

2:56

won the prestigious Tour de France, the

2:59

hundred mile multi day cycling

3:02

event held every summer. And

3:04

in a nice coincide, Laman's

3:06

name in French means the world,

3:09

and I suppose he was reminding the world

3:11

that Americans could be good cyclists

3:13

too. And then

3:15

came Lance. Lance

3:19

Armstrong was a brash

3:21

and cocky Texan who would do the

3:23

astounding, the the incomprehensible,

3:27

and Lance Armstrong has a remarkable

3:29

personal story and a remarkable

3:31

body. When he was sixteen

3:34

years old, he was one of the nation's best

3:36

junior triathletes and they did

3:38

tests on Armstrong at a clinic in

3:40

Dallas, and the doctors learned

3:42

that Lance Armstrong had an almost superhuman

3:45

ability to use oxygen

3:48

efficiently, which is very important

3:50

in aerobic sports like cycling. His

3:53

body also did not produce normal

3:55

amounts of lactic acid when he

3:57

exercised strenuously, and lactic

3:59

acid is what makes your muscles burn and

4:01

hurt when working out. Armstrong's

4:04

muscles and burn like the muscles

4:06

of an average person. Lance

4:08

Armstrong was built to endure.

4:12

Armstrong focused on cycling, and he quickly

4:15

became the top American cyclist,

4:17

and he seemed poised to do what Greg Lamont

4:19

had done. When the prestigious Tour de

4:21

France then in. Doctors

4:25

told him that he had advanced testicular

4:28

cancer. Armstrong

4:31

underwent surgery and had the cancerous

4:33

testicle removed, but the cancer

4:35

had spread into his lungs and into

4:37

his brain. His oncologist

4:40

told him his chance of survival was

4:42

not good, but

4:44

Lance Armstrong fought. He

4:47

underwent three months of aggressive

4:49

chemotherapy. He lost fifteen

4:51

pounds from his already very lean

4:54

frame, but by the next summer

4:56

tests revealed that the cancer was gone,

4:59

and Armstrong returned to cycling.

5:02

He kept off much of the weight he had lost.

5:04

He was just two percent body fat.

5:08

He entered the Tour de France in n So

5:11

three years after being diagnosed with

5:13

cancer, and he stunned

5:16

the cycling world as he surged

5:18

up the mountains that the rest of the

5:20

world's top riders were left behind

5:22

in exhaustion. He

5:25

won the Tour de France in n and

5:27

he dominated the field in a way never

5:29

seen before. His performance was

5:32

just astounding in

5:34

the wake of his victory when journalists

5:36

wrote everything we

5:38

knew about human athletic achievement

5:41

needs to be reconsidered. And

5:45

then Lance won the Tour de France the next year

5:47

in two thousand and then again in

5:49

two thousand and one, and then in two

5:51

thousand and two, and then two thousand

5:53

and three, two thousand and four, and two thousand

5:55

and five at seven straight

5:58

titles. And while doing

6:00

all this, he started his Live Strong

6:02

Foundation, which raised awareness and money

6:05

for the fight against cancer. Lance

6:08

Armstrong became an inspiration to American

6:10

sports fan certainly, but he

6:12

was a hero to anyone with cancer

6:14

or anyone whose life had been touched

6:17

by cancer, and more and more that just

6:19

seems to be everyone. Millions

6:21

of people were walking around with those yellow

6:23

rubber bracelets a statement of support

6:26

for cancer research and for Lance

6:28

Armstrong. You know what

6:30

Lance Armstrong was. He was

6:32

an American folk hero, the

6:35

lone Texas cowboy, riding

6:37

high in the saddle, fighting

6:39

for justice. He dated

6:41

pop stars and went mountain biking

6:43

with the President of the United States, another

6:46

Texan, George W. Bush.

6:49

But throughout it all there

6:51

was a nagging question, how

6:54

can he really be doing this, how

6:56

can he be that good? And

6:59

French journalists, who had a better understanding

7:02

of what was possible in cycling than most

7:04

Americans, they insisted

7:07

that Lance Armstrong had to be doping,

7:09

that is said, he must be taking

7:11

illegal performance enhancing drugs.

7:14

But most Americans, even hard

7:16

nosed sportswriters, they dismissed

7:19

the accusation. No, not Lance.

7:21

We love Lance. We put

7:24

our heads in the sand. It's

7:27

all very similar to the way we valorized

7:29

a pair of baseball players in the late

7:31

nineteen nineties. So let me make a very

7:34

quick detour and talk about baseball. In

7:39

Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa went on a

7:41

home run hitting spree, and they

7:43

went after the single season home run

7:45

record sixty one set by Roger

7:47

Marris in nineteen sixty one. And

7:50

there was something magical about these

7:52

two two players, one white,

7:55

one black. One McGuire

7:57

a quiet, hulking American, the

8:00

other Sosa, a a joyous

8:02

and powerful Dominican, were

8:05

playing for story teams in the Midwest,

8:07

the Cubs and the Cardinals, and

8:10

they weren't just hitting home runs. They

8:12

were crushing baseballs, each

8:14

home run further than the last. And

8:17

American sports fans ate it

8:19

up. The stadiums were packed

8:21

wherever these guys went, and as they

8:23

got closer to the record, regular

8:26

TV broadcast would be interrupted

8:28

whenever one of them was coming to the plate. You

8:30

know, it was we now interrupt Seinfeld

8:33

because Mark McGuire is coming to bat.

8:36

It was must see TV. I

8:39

mean this. I don't think baseball

8:42

was ever more popular than it

8:44

was in the summer. Ever,

8:48

part of the reason for the home run obsession

8:52

was that this was the same summer

8:54

as the Bill Clinton Monica Lewinsky

8:56

sex scandal. During that summer,

8:59

the President was coming clean and admitting

9:01

to an inappropriate relationship

9:03

with a twenty three year old White House intern.

9:06

And so Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa

9:09

hitting baseballs to the moon. It

9:11

was a wonderful diversion from

9:13

that sordid story. As

9:16

I said, the record had been sixty one home

9:19

runs in a season, but in Mark

9:22

McGuire hit an astounding seventy

9:25

Sammy Sosa hit sixty six.

9:29

Mmm. Seems a little suspicious

9:32

to me. It seemed a little suspicious

9:34

at the time. Maybe

9:36

they were taking steroids.

9:39

Steroids are synthetic testosterone.

9:43

Steroids increased body mass,

9:45

and muscle power. They also increase speed

9:48

and agility. People

9:51

used to say that steroids don't help you

9:53

hit a baseball. That's not true. They

9:55

do. They make your back quicker and

9:57

then when you hit the ball, the ball goes farther.

10:01

There is a reason baseball players

10:03

took steroids. They work,

10:06

but we didn't want to question it. Head

10:08

in the sand and McGuire and so

10:11

said. They were everywhere that year. The cover

10:13

of Time, Newsweek Sports

10:16

Illustrated named them their co Sportsman

10:18

of the Year, and their accomplishments

10:21

were even sexualized. The

10:23

shoe company Nike. They conflated

10:26

sex and power hitting when they

10:28

produced the definitive commercial

10:30

of the steroids era. In

10:33

their Chicks Dig the Long Ball

10:35

commercial, two top pitchers

10:37

Greg Maddox and Tom Glavin of the Atlanta

10:40

Braves. They get fed up with all

10:42

the admiration that Mark McGuire is

10:44

receiving, especially from Heather Locklear,

10:47

the actress who at the time was at the at

10:49

the top of the Hollywood food chain for her

10:51

work on Melrose Place, and

10:53

these two pictures decide they want to get

10:55

the girl, so they start lifting weights

10:58

and drinking protein shakes, and they

11:00

transformed themselves into power hitters.

11:03

Chicks dig the long ball. They said

11:06

home runs are an aphrodisiac.

11:09

Americans were horny for

11:12

home runs. Some

11:14

people looked at the incredible,

11:16

hulk like physiques of McGuire

11:19

and Sosa and accused

11:21

them of taking steroids, but they

11:23

denied it. And it was the

11:25

same with Lance. There

11:28

were a few people who claimed that Armstrong

11:30

had to be taking performance enhancing drugs.

11:32

He was just too fast, he had too much

11:35

endurance, but he denied the claims.

11:38

He angrily denied the claims.

11:40

He sued anyone who claimed

11:43

that he was doping. Lance

11:45

Armstrong financially ruined

11:48

anyone who made that accusation.

11:51

And but the record show Lance

11:53

Armstrong took hundreds of drug tests

11:56

and he passed everyone. But

12:00

the suspicions and the accusations

12:02

continued even after Armstrong

12:05

retired from the sport, and more

12:07

and more cyclists who were now also retired,

12:10

They said that they saw Lance

12:12

Armstrong dope, that they saw

12:14

him take illegal drugs, and in fact

12:16

some admitted that they had doped with him.

12:20

In two thousand and twelve, the World Anti

12:22

Doping Agency they formally charged

12:25

Lance Armstrong with taking illegal performance

12:27

enhancing drugs, and the evidence was

12:29

so overwhelming that the Tour de

12:32

France stripped him of his seven

12:34

titles. The

12:36

next year, in Lance

12:39

Armstrong finally came clean, so

12:41

to speak, he sat down with

12:43

Oprah Winfrey. Oprah actually

12:45

makes two appearances in our lecture today,

12:48

and he admitted that he had been doping the

12:50

entire time. He admitted

12:53

to taking banned performance enhancing

12:55

drugs for all seven of his tour

12:57

victories. And we now know that

12:59

he masterminded a drug taking

13:01

regimen, and he demanded that anyone

13:03

who wanted to ride on his cycling team

13:06

they had the dope as well. Lance

13:09

Armstrong was a liar certainly,

13:12

and because he knowingly and blatantly

13:15

broke the rules of his sport, he

13:17

was a cheater. And my

13:19

question is do you care?

13:23

Do you care that Lance Armstrong cheated

13:25

specifically? And do you care

13:27

when athletes take illegal performance

13:30

enhancing drugs? You know, baseball players

13:32

like Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa or

13:34

Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens, and

13:36

that list goes on and on and on.

13:40

You know, athletes cheat in their sports and all

13:42

sorts of ways. In football,

13:44

they purposely hold at the line of scrimmage.

13:47

In baseball, they hollow out the center

13:49

of their bat and they fill it with court or

13:52

super balls, or they throw a spitball.

13:55

This type of cheating is often described as

13:57

amusing or ingenious, and

13:59

we say, that's why there are referees and

14:01

umpires. But

14:03

for the most parts, sports fans

14:05

seem to have drawn a line

14:08

with steroids. And

14:10

here's why, I think, and this takes us

14:12

to the essence of our fascination with

14:14

sports.

14:17

For us to identify with an athlete,

14:19

you know, to be thrilled by their

14:21

physical performance, the

14:24

athlete needs to be like us.

14:26

The athlete has to be human. We

14:29

want to revel in their accomplishments

14:31

and say, wow, I can't do

14:33

that. But that sense

14:35

of awe and wonder can only

14:38

exist if the athlete is made

14:40

of the same materials that we

14:42

are. And we have decided

14:44

that steroids widen the gap

14:47

between us and them too much. So

14:49

when Lance Armstrong or Mark

14:52

McGuire juiced themselves up to their eyeballs,

14:54

we no longer understand what they

14:57

are made of. That they cease being

14:59

like us, and so racing

15:02

up the alps or or hitting a baseball. Four

15:04

D and fIF defeat. These

15:06

feats are less meaningful if

15:08

the athlete exists on a different

15:10

biological plane. Is

15:13

it supreme skill in human

15:15

will? Or is it just the

15:17

chemicals? We don't

15:19

know, And so that seems

15:22

to be a type of cheating that we do not

15:24

countenance. After

15:27

the break, Tiger Woods cheats

15:30

a different way.

15:45

Speaking of cheating, let's

15:48

turn to Tiger Woods. Actually, let's

15:50

first talk about the racial history

15:53

of golf. I think this is an important story

15:55

to understand in order to appreciate

15:57

the revolutionary impact of Tiger

16:00

Woods. The

16:02

last time we discussed golf was when we're

16:04

talking about a creation of those exclusive

16:06

country clubs where wealthy Americans

16:09

gathered to separate themselves from

16:11

everyone else, and African Americans

16:13

were barred from playing on most of these private

16:15

golf courses, though they could be found

16:18

on these golf courses serving as caddies

16:22

at Augusta National in Georgia, the

16:24

home of the Master's golf tournament as

16:27

late as the nineteen sixties. If you

16:29

went to the Masters, all of the

16:31

golfers were white and all

16:34

of the caddies were black, every

16:36

one of them. And do not think

16:38

for a minute that this was a coincidence. This

16:41

was the nation's racial hierarchy being

16:43

reproduced and reinforced

16:46

on the golf course. The players

16:48

are white and their servants in

16:50

this case called their caddies are

16:52

people of color. That was all done

16:54

on purpose. Racial

16:57

exclusion was encoded in professional

16:59

golf from its beginnings the Professional

17:01

Golf Association the p g A. It

17:04

was founded in nineteen sixteen, and

17:06

it had a Caucasians only

17:08

rule, white golfers only.

17:12

The first exception to this rule came

17:14

in nineteen fifty two when Joe

17:16

Louis, the ex heavyweight champion.

17:19

He essentially shamed the San

17:21

Diego Open into granting

17:23

him an exemption and letting him play.

17:26

So Joe Louis is the answer to a great

17:28

trivia question, who was the first

17:31

black golfer to compete in the PGA

17:33

tournament? It's Joe Lewis. The

17:37

p g A was not officially desegregated

17:39

until nineteen sixty one, making

17:42

it the last of the major professional

17:44

sport associations to allow black

17:46

athletes to participate, and

17:48

there would be some very good black golfers in the

17:50

sixties and seventies. There was Charlie

17:53

Sifford. He was the first black member

17:55

of the p g A. There was Lee

17:57

Elder, the first black golfer to play in

17:59

the Masters in but

18:03

through the Civil Rights era and to the

18:05

post Civil Rights Sarah, golf

18:07

was among the whitest of American professional

18:10

sports. Then

18:13

came a Southern California kid named

18:16

Eldrick taunt Woods. Nicknamed

18:18

Tiger after one of his dad's army

18:21

buddies. Tiger

18:23

Woods has essentially been in the limelights since

18:25

he was born. He made his TV

18:27

debut when he was two years old. He

18:30

appeared on The Mike Douglas Show with his father

18:32

at not to mention Bob Hope, and he was swinging

18:35

the club and sinking putts, and

18:37

his father boasted that his two year

18:39

old son would one day be the

18:42

best golfer the world has ever

18:44

seen, and it was a prescient

18:46

remark. Tiger Woods

18:48

tore through the amateur ranks. He dominated

18:51

collegiate golf while at Stanford, and

18:53

then Tiger turned pro in and

18:57

before he ever swung a club as

18:59

a professional, he signed an unheard

19:02

of forty million dollar contract

19:04

with Nike, a company that was eager

19:06

to find its way into the golf market. This

19:10

was the Air Jordan's effect. Right, Jordan

19:12

had led the way and shown how lucrative

19:15

it could be for Nike to align themselves

19:17

with the ascendant athlete of the moment,

19:20

and Tiger Woods seemed to be that athlete.

19:24

Tiger Woods is the son of Earl

19:26

Woods, a man of African American

19:29

and Native American ancestry,

19:31

and Tita Woods, who Earlwoods

19:33

met while in the U. S. Army and on a tour

19:36

of duty in Thailand. She has South

19:38

Asian and Dutch ancestry.

19:41

And when Tiger Woods burst onto the scene

19:43

in the mid ninety nineties, it was

19:46

right when Americans were discussing new

19:48

terms like diversity and

19:50

multiracial nous, and Tiger

19:53

Woods embodied these ideas,

19:56

the multi ethnic, multiracial.

19:58

Tiger Woods was very much

20:01

a man of the multiracial moment.

20:03

You know, his his multi race stillness is ethnic

20:06

diversity. Who didn't Tiger

20:08

represent He was

20:10

the embodiment of modern America,

20:13

a modern America that was becoming less

20:15

white, more colorful, and

20:17

more diverse. Tiger

20:21

Woods was an amazing success in professional

20:23

golf, and right away maybe

20:26

the biggest golf tournament of the year is the Masters,

20:28

played every April in Augusta

20:31

and the Augusta National Golf Club, which hopes

20:33

the tournament that they didn't even allow African

20:35

Americans to be members until

20:40

so in In his first

20:42

time playing the Masters as a pro, the

20:45

multi racial Tiger Woods, he won

20:47

the Masters by an astounding twelve

20:49

strokes, the largest margin

20:51

of victory ever in that tournament. At

20:53

that time, Tiger was

20:55

only twenty one, still the youngest

20:57

player to ever win the Masters. And

21:00

this was hailed as a civil rights

21:02

triumph. You know, Tiger Woods, a man

21:04

of many colors, winning in what was

21:07

perhaps the most exclusive and

21:09

whitest of all American sporting

21:11

spaces. Tiger

21:13

Woods the racial trailblazer.

21:17

One week after his Master's triumph, Tiger

21:20

Woods was on the Oprah Winfrey Show. Oprah

21:22

is back on this show.

21:25

Tiger Woods opened up and he talked about race

21:27

and his racial identity, and he told

21:29

Oprah that as a kid, he had come

21:31

up with the term Cablanasian

21:34

for himself, or he invented

21:36

to honor his parents diverse heritage.

21:39

He was Caucasian, white, who's

21:42

black, Indian or Native

21:44

American and Asian. He was

21:46

Cablanasian. There

21:49

were a few people who ridicule Tiger

21:51

for this invented word. I mean some in the

21:53

black community especially, They

21:55

saw this multi racial stance as

21:57

a betrayal of his real race. No,

22:00

you're black, Tiger, they said. But

22:02

I think most people saw this as a serious attempt

22:04

by a young man to articulate his complex

22:07

heritage, and especially growing

22:09

up in a nation that forced him to check

22:12

a box and pick one and only

22:14

one racial identity. And

22:17

so the rise of Tiger Woods in the

22:19

white world of golf, much like the

22:21

Air Jordan phenomenon, it

22:23

was presented as evidence that America was

22:25

becoming a post racial society,

22:28

you know. The hero worshiping of

22:30

Jordan's and now Tiger was presented

22:32

as evidence that we as a nation had gotten

22:34

over our racial hangups. And

22:37

there are those who suggest that athletes

22:39

like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan's they

22:42

made the election and presidency of Barack

22:44

Obama possible. The argument

22:46

here is that white Americans had to identify

22:48

with a black athlete before they could

22:51

vote for a black president. White

22:54

Americans wearing their Air Jordan's and

22:56

rooting for Tiger on Sundays, perhaps

22:58

these everyday acts opened up Americans

23:01

to the possibilities of a black president.

23:04

That's the idea. I think it's intriguing.

23:07

So Tiger Woods was like Mike in a

23:10

number of ways, but especially in

23:12

the way he was dominating his sport.

23:14

He hit the ball further than everyone else.

23:17

He possessed a determination rarely

23:19

seen in that sport. Tiger

23:23

was stalking Jack Nicholas

23:25

and his record of major tournament wins.

23:28

Jack Nicholas won eighteen majors.

23:30

This refers to the four big tournaments played

23:32

every year in golf, and eighteen majors.

23:35

This was the benchmark in men's

23:37

golf. In two thousand

23:39

and nine, at only thirty three years of

23:41

age, Tiger had already won fourteen.

23:44

It seemed inevitable that he would pass Nicholas.

23:46

The question was not if he would get the record,

23:49

the question was when. And

23:52

then on Thanksgiving weekend two thousand

23:54

and nine, the entire Tiger Woods

23:57

storyline changed, and it changed fast.

24:00

First, we learned that Tiger Woods crashed

24:03

his SUV while backing out of his driveway

24:05

at a high speed early in the morning, and

24:08

according to the initial reports, his Swedish

24:10

wife Ellen, she heroically smashed

24:12

the window of the card for the record

24:15

it was with a three iron and she dragged

24:17

Tiger from the wreck. But

24:20

then the questions began. Had

24:22

Ellen rescued Tiger or

24:24

had she actually been attacking her husband

24:26

with the golf club, thus causing

24:29

the accident, Well, it

24:31

was the latter. Almost

24:33

immediately came rumors of a relationship

24:36

on the rocks, followed by the stories

24:38

of Tiger's alleged marital infidelities,

24:41

and then the story exploded. I

24:44

mean, day after day we read stories of

24:46

Tiger having sex and motel rooms,

24:48

sex and church parking lots,

24:50

sex with coffee shop waitresses,

24:52

sex with porn stars, sex

24:54

and more sex and never ending sex.

24:58

It was a media and public

25:00

feeding frenzy, and it

25:02

was a sign that a good sex scandal

25:05

might actually be this nation's most

25:07

popular spectator sport. From

25:11

Tiger came the denial of guilt,

25:14

then the admission of guilt, Then

25:16

the ritualistic, tearful public apology,

25:19

and then a check into a rehab clinic for

25:22

for sex addiction, not drugs or alcohol.

25:25

There were the jokes on late night TV. You

25:28

know, question what course

25:30

gives Tiger Woods the most trouble? Answer?

25:34

Intercourse. Finally

25:36

came the divorce, a divorce

25:39

with an undisclosed settlement, but

25:41

a settlement so large. I

25:43

am told that the transfer of money into

25:46

his wife x wife ellen Swedish

25:48

bank account it actually bolstered

25:50

the value of the Swedish krona against

25:53

the American dollar. That doesn't

25:55

seem possible to me. But if so,

25:58

wow. But

26:01

once again, let me ask you,

26:03

Tiger is a cheater. A different kind

26:06

of cheater than Lance Armstrong, but a cheater.

26:09

Do you care? Here's

26:11

my take all the extra

26:14

marital cheating. I don't really care.

26:16

I mean, sure, shame on you, Tiger, but

26:19

it's none of my business.

26:21

But the nation turned on Tiger Woods.

26:23

Americans were outraged, and

26:26

I think one of the reasons for the collective

26:28

national outrage was this. For

26:32

almost two centuries, Americans

26:35

have equated athletic excellence

26:37

with moral excellence. Championship

26:40

athletes, we've been told have strong

26:43

moral fiber. This is a belief

26:45

that goes all the way back to that idea

26:47

of muscular Christianity. You know,

26:49

the idea that sports build character

26:51

and moral fiber, the idea that only

26:54

those with character can succeed

26:56

in sports. Well,

26:59

it turns out it's not true. As

27:02

Tiger Woods proved. It turns out you

27:04

can golf by day and cheat on your wife

27:06

at night and in the afternoon and

27:08

in the morning. It turns out being able

27:10

to hit a golf ball close to a hole is

27:12

not evidence of a strong moral compass.

27:15

Neither is being able to hit a baseball over

27:17

the fence or throw a football sixty yards

27:19

in a tight spiral. In fact,

27:21

there are those who actually suggest that Tiger's

27:24

extramarital sleaziness,

27:26

that it fueled his tremendous confidence

27:28

and his sporting testosterone. You

27:30

know. They suggest maybe womanizing made

27:33

him a better golfer. Sex

27:35

as steroids. I don't know. But

27:38

when the really great athlete Tiger

27:40

Woods turned out to be the really

27:43

terrible guy, Tiger Woods, he

27:45

received the collective outrage of a

27:48

nation that was upset with an athlete not

27:50

living up to our somewhat impossible

27:53

standards. We

27:56

want to believe that good guys win in

27:58

sports, that there is some direct link

28:00

between sports and morality,

28:03

but more and more on one dering if that's

28:05

true.

28:09

That's all for now. Next time on

28:12

the Untold History of Sports in America,

28:14

presented by One Day University

28:17

Sports and September eleven,

28:30

School of Humans,