13:32 of Nothing

So I admit it: when I woke up at 9:30 this morning, fairly begrudgingly mind you, I had every intention of tuning in along with the rest of the world to Tiger Woods' first public statement since the fateful Thanksgiving weekend accident that exposed a world of.... indiscretions. I hated that from 4 pm Wednesday afternoon until 11 this morning that the rest of the sports world stopped for the conference, and hated that the rest of Friday was devoted to analyzing and questioning it. But from 11 am until 11:15, I put my discontent behind me and became mesmerized by it all. The fact that George W. Bush's former security guards were called in. That news outlets other than ESPN stopped everything to watch. That one athlete could have such an impact. But after the 13 minute, 32 second speech, I snapped back into reality and thought: What did that accomplish?

Emotional Appeal: The fact that Tiger is about as emotional as a rock didn't help his cause. Columnist Bill Simmons put it best on his Twitter page, saying, "I can't believe Nike killed Tiger and replaced him with a robot. Why isn't this a bigger deal?" Don't get me wrong, I was by no means expecting the Progressive employee from those commercials. This is not a laughing matter (at least for him). But.... to sound like this.... for the entire time.... didn't do it for me. It made him sound like a machine. And for someone trying to win back the support of fans (his favorability has gone from 85% down to 40% over the course of this ordeal), the whole monotone, thing isn't the way to go. As a fan, I for one didn't find myself feeling sympathy for him; maybe if he showed even a remote amount of life, I might have. Success: None.

Sense of Sorrow: To make up for his lack of inflection in his voice, Tiger at the most important times looked straight into the camera, so as to show he was not talking to the 40 people in the room, but also to the world. This worked.... until the camera's feed was lost a little more than halfway through. For the last few minutes the only camera that worked was one from the side. So all of Tiger's finger pointing and remorseful glances to the nation went for naught. (Side note: I would NOT want to be the guy who ran the camera. Out of every cameraman in America, he was the one chosen to film perhaps the most-hyped about news conference in sports history. Every major news station in the country, and probably Europe too, was taking the feed that came from his camera, and he lost the video feed. I think I have a better shot at scoring with Jessica Alba than he does at ever getting another camera job.) Basically, his most heartfelt and sympathetic part, where he apologized to all of the families that were a part of his charity organization, sounded like Alpha 5 from Mighty Morphin Power Rangers and lost all its power because when he tried to look into the camera, no one could see. His most powerful tool, the one that most effectively showed how truly sorry and changed he was, taken away. (Side Note #2: Odds that Elin took a driver to the camera to ruin the conference: 3-1) Success: Minimal

Productivity: Ever since the car accident was first reported and the confession of guilt came out, people have been asking all sorts of questions. Why was Tiger racing out of his driveway at 2 am? Did Elin know prior to the accident about the cheating? Are they going to stay together? When will he return to golf? Woods has always been a private person, and with the no-questions-allowed policy of the conference, I didn't expect too many answers. But I at least expected to get a question or two answered. I know now as much as I did last night about the situation. Some stuff will stay between him and his wife, as it should be. But he made it a point to apologize to the public and his fans, who he let down. If he wants forgiveness, it's only fair that the public knows for what they are forgiving him, right? (Put it this way: Your spouse cheats on you. You hear some rumors that say it was with your best friend, and others that say it was with a sibling. You are unsure of which. Would you forgive the spouse if they merely said "I'm sorry." without saying with whom they cheated? Exactly. You wouldn't until you knew who it was.) Tiger is the cheater, the public is the clueless spouse. I can't see him gaining forgiveness until he talks some more. And who knows when that will be. Success: None

Basically, for 812 seconds the world all but stopped for this news conference. This was more than an athlete admitting his transgressions. This was a seemingly invincible global icon whose world came crashing down by an enormous meteor, only this time Bruce Willis wasn't there to stop it from happening. But really, what good came from the speech? How did this remedy the situation at all? In retrospect, all this proved was that even when Tiger has hit rock bottom, he can still manipulate the media at will and have things go his way or the highway. The only difference between this apology and those of Mark McGwire, Alex Rodriguez, and Kobe Bryant was fewer reporters, no questions, and a monotonous, Terminator-esque tone of voice.