We talked to champions from all sorts of summer sports, from swimming to running to boxing to gymnastics. But despite their disparate backgrounds, the most popular pick was someone who plays a sport that doesn’t even appear in the Olympics: professional golfer Tiger Woods.
“I really like Tiger Woods,” says Carly Patterson, winner of a gold medal for all-around gymnastics in the 2004 Athens Games. “It doesn’t matter what the circumstances are. If the odds are against him or if he has an injury, he comes through. He always does his best. He can always perform under pressure and pull through.”
You can’t argue with Woods’ success. He’s won 14 major golf championships and 65 PGA Tour events. In June, he won the U.S. Open for the third time, despite the fact that he was playing with a broken leg.
“Just winning the U.S. Open in pain shows the greatness and guts of a true champion,” says Jackie Joyner-Kersee, an American track and field athlete who won six Olympic medals in four consecutive games, beginning in 1984. “He has the ability, he’s humble and he’s very good at what he does.”
And he’s paid well for doing it. Last month, Woods ranked No. 2 on our Celebrity 100 list of the world’s most powerful and best-paid celebrities. He got there, in part, for earning over $115 million over the last year, thanks to big endorsement contracts with, Accenture, Buick and Gillette. He even signed a five-year agreement to release his own line of Gatorade drinks.
“[Tiger Woods is] the one person I most respect right now,” says American swimmer Matt Biondi, who won eight gold medals over the course of the 1984, 1988 and 1992 games. “He’s made an impact on the world and has transcended his sport. … Tiger has captured a global audience and gained a mental and physical advantage over his opponents.”
When my sons were young and marveling over MJ's hang time, sensational moves and three pointers and then yell, wide eyed and breathless, "man. how does he do that?," my one word answer was always the same..."practice."
I was reminded of Michael and Tiger's ability to believe in themselves. set goals, commit to whatever it takes and WIN, as I listened to a radio broadcast yesterday where the topic of discussion was "The State Of Black America. The moderator's question of why Black Americans create and inovate but over and over again caucasians capitalize and get rich from Black inventions had not been thoroughly answered by the time they segwayed into another issue. Later as I read the olympian's commentary the answer to the Black - White big money dilema jumped off the page. Mass Black group success by any measurement will continue to elude African Americans until massive amounts of individual AAs trade in their slave mental attitudes for the attitude and heart of champions.
The slave thinking and forced non participation in national ownership, commerce and trade has to be forced out of millions of descendents of millions of former slaves who for the most part were forced to give up their human identity and sense of championship and just be good slaves. Losing was forced in. Winning must force it out,
Do you feel like a winner?
Got a burning desire?
Get a coach.
Practice, practice, practice.
See you at the TOP!
BC.
