Winning Takes Care of Everything

“Adversity causes some men to break; others to break records” – William A. Ward

              One of my favorite quotes and something that I have been able to refer back to whenever times are tough, whether it is with injury, a tough string of losses, and all other troubles athletes experience on a daily basis. The meaning? Simple: when faced with a challenge, you have two choices. You can either both rise up and respond in a way that embraces the grind and makes you stronger or you can submit to the hardship and let the challenge defeat you, both physically and mentally. Our society never falls short to produce success stories in the athletic world that put the spotlight on athletes who are able to come back and achieve victory after suffering some sort of set back in their life. My favorite examples of this are some of the best athletes in the game today. One is Tom Brady, who many people believe is the best quarterback in the NFL and possibly the most clutch player to ever play the game. What people over look is that he was drafted 199^th in the 6^th round when he came out of Michigan and had to battle his way to even get a chance to make the team (great E60 about the whole process “The Brady 6” – recommend it to everyone).

            However, above all else, one of my favorite comeback stories, as of late, is Tiger Woods. After going through some off the field troubles with marital life back in 2009, Woods was at the forefront of an overwhelming amount of media attention for the better portion of two years. His life off the course translated into poor play on the course, with Woods going winless, let alone Major-less, for consecutive seasons. As quickly as Tiger had gained millions of fans across the world when he emerged on the PGA scene in 1996, he lost fans, endorsement deals, and credibility almost at an accelerated rate. The same people who were his biggest supporters were now his most vocal critics, which is what usually happens to athletes when they stop winning. The public court of opinion is often one of the harshest critics.

            Now, here’s a little disclaimer: I don’t agree with Tiger Woods off the field actions and, frankly, I don’t think it was anyone’s business to get involved in the first place but, given his level of stardom, he is constantly under the microscope so public interventions were to be expected. What I am going to talk about is not what he did, but how he responded from that point. Now that I got that out of the way, let’s take a look at how every athlete can learn from Woods’ experience.

            From the second his press conference ended where he addressed the issue head on, it was as if Tiger Woods flipped a switch and began the road back to where he once was. He went to rehab and did a lot of charity work to better himself while trying to get his game back and separate what was going on in his personal life from what he was trying to do on the course. While Woods was losing top sponsors such as Rolex and Buick, going through a divorce, being the subject of all sports media, the butt of jokes, and hanging onto his Nike contact by a thread, he kept his head down and kept working. He couldn’t be bothered with what everyone was saying about him because he was on a mission to achieve his goals and make a comeback. After all, as most of you know, no matter what you do in life, someone will always have something to say about it. Over the past couple of years, Tiger had sporatic wins here and there, which got the chatter going about whether he was finally back or not. All wins, however, seemed to be followed by streaky play on the course, which caused the voice of supporters to fade as they were overpowered by the voices of critics once again.

            Now, fast forward to right now and it seems like we have rewound time back to the early 2000s when Tiger was in his prime. To date, he currently has three tournament wins in this season alone and is the overwhelming favorite to win the Masters in April. He has a new relationship with Olympic Gold Medalist Skier Lindsay Vonn and seems to only be in the media for positive coverage now. He has endorsement deals coming in from top firms faster than text messages to a teenage girl’s cell phone and has made a re-emergence in commercials, something we have not seen in the past couple of years. Yes, it has happened: Eldrick Tont “Tiger” Woods is finally back. And, surely, with times reverting back to what they once were, Tiger must be cocky, arrogant, and egotistical, right? Wrong. Despite proving everyone wrong and silencing every critic, Tiger still maintains his same personality that the world fell in love with almost two decades ago.

            If you take anything away from Tiger’s comeback, it should be as a template for how all athlete’s attitudes should be when they face adversity. Here is a guy who had arguably the biggest fall from grace in recent memory; a guy who lost almost every endorsement deal he had worked so hard to get; a guy who had everyone turn against him in a blink of an eye, and he managed to embrace the struggle, the grind, the adversity, and use it as motivation to get back to where he once was instead of wallowing in the negativity surrounding him.

            Since I started with a quote, I will end with a quote but this time it is from Tiger himself. “I want to be what I’ve always wanted to be: dominant.” Well congratulations, Tiger, it seems you have returned to the Tiger of old and made Sundays exciting for us again.

            I am not a betting man, but even I would “bet the farm” that Tiger wins the Masters next week. As he has shown us time and time again, determination and the will to win gives you every tool necessary to overcome any amount of adversity you might come across, no matter how big or small.