GO TIGER GO!

"Go, Tigers Go!" was a cheer that I once shouted at a football game.

I recently read a one-page article in Newsweek that Tiger Woods wrote. It's about how he's redefined "victory." I was moved by it, not because of what the article said, but his courage -- Tiger wants people to know what he thinks about what he did.

I feel if the media hadn't grabbed T.W's story, and inspired the girls he slept with to tell their tales, he might have been able to salvage his marriage and family.

I feel that we, the hungry-for-dirt public, made salvaging his marriage impossible. Before you moan oh Em, you are wrong, let me explain.

I think -- despite the body blows and the ugly revelations -- the words, the doings, the pile upon pile of lies, that were rammed, pounded into the head of his wife -- one can recover. It's possible to re-find the essential, powerful connections of family -- the kids the couple made together -- the things they shared that made the love that produced the children. It's possible to recreate a marriage.

Yes, I know, you probably don't agree. I can see the expression on the faces of most people who read this, who cry NEVER! You are certain that if a spouse, man or woman is unfaithful, that's it -- that's the end!

I'm not talking about right and wrong, or religious convictions, or vows. I'm talking about the hand-me-down ideas that burn a pathway, a sequence of thoughts in your mind, and brand the idea that a marriage or a love cannot survive and rise above, in fact, thrive -- truly thrive -- when a spouse plays around (screws around, or whatever you want to call it), -- when one-half of the relationship fails, and seriously wounds, hurts the other.

Faithful/unfaithful, like sin, like screwing around are words. Do away with the words. and deal with the moment of the present. The bruised, aching, shocked person, and the wrong-doer -- how, why, what --what actually did the wrong doer do? What was the compelling element? Was it lust, a sexual need? Or an example set by someone else?

(Remember, the playing of a winning golf game was taught to Tiger by a beloved father married to Tiger's mom, and that taught the young boy what love and marriage were.)

Whatever the reasons, we are heightening everything that has to do with sex drive, one's appetite, what's sexy, sexual techniques. gratification, frequency -- the importance of hot sex, wild sex, spur-of-the-moment sex -- and yet we condemn a person who's hooked on it.

With Tiger Woods we have a winner, with many years ahead of him, where he can inspire us all to do and be the best.

Maybe someone helped Tiger write the article for Newsweek. Maybe he wrote it by himself. Read it, and try to unclench your fist; loosen your convictions that he's a bad man. Cheer him on and it may help you, as well as him.

Here' what he wrote in Newsweek: "How I Have Redefined Victory."