Speak easy

Should athletes be obligated to sound off on weighty issues?

Why are young athletes the only real entertainment celebrities ever expected to explain their views on important worldly matters? I can't remember the last time J-Lo or Brad Pitt or the Dixie Chicks were asked to sit down with Tim Russert to defend their opinions on tort reform or farm subsidies, but athletes are often expected to expound on issues outside their very limited field of expertise.

Michael Jordan was particularly lacerated for refusing to publicly express any opinion whatsoever on controversial subjects. Indeed, to avoid taking sides, he once most famously pointed out that Republicans also bought sneakers. Now Tiger Woods has been held up to scorn for failing to call out the Augusta National Golf Club -- home of the Masters -- for not having any female members. Said Tiger, evenly: "They're entitled to set up their rules the way they want."

Now, in my experience, you don't need anyone from outside Augusta National to call attention to the ham-handed ways of that blockheaded institution. The current Augusta chief, a gentleman who is actually called Hootie, has already blustered on about how no fool women are going to pressure his precious club into any mad revolutionary change. But it was Woods who was lambasted for being a coward and a hypocrite, for not supporting women, as sure as other folks had once stuck out their necks to get the minority likes of him into restricted clubs.

African-American athletes, in particular, are expected to both sound off and be benefactors. White athletes, however, are seldom asked about race and are not expected to devote their time and treasure to, say, undernourished Appalachian children.

Jim Brown, the great running back, who was surely never any shrinking violet, has been most vocal in criticizing contemporary black athletes for playing it too safe lest they put their endorsements at peril. But most athletes are just that, talented bodies, and however engaging they may be, they simply do not want to get drawn into controversial territory. They're so much more accessible, too. Unlike actors and rock stars, who are cocooned behind bodyguards and consent only to interviews where all subjects this side of their new release are off-limits, athletes even have microphones shoved into their faces when half-naked.

As a journalist, I hate that most modern athletes are so bland, but they're very young and pampered and maybe their reticence isn't just a pose. Fred Zinnemann, the old movie director, was once asked what a certain actress was really like. "What makes you think she's like anything?" he replied.

But the Augusta National brouhaha, did remind me how the popularity of women's golf lags so far behind that of women's tennis. Annika Sorenstam is as much a force in her sport as Woods or the Williams Sisters or Lance Armstrong are in theirs. But nobody knows what she looks like, let alone much anything else about her.

But, you see, women's tennis has always been accepted by men. Oh, now maybe not quite equally -- let's not get carried away -- but female players became part of the big tournaments back in the 19th century. Clubs did not make tennis-playing women second-class citizens, as so many female golfers have had to be, even now. The greater irony of Augusta National is not that it discriminates against women, but that, in its hidebound old way, it's hurting the very thing it professes to love -- golf.

But, as Tiger said, they're entitled.

Sports Illustrated senior contributing writer Frank Deford is a regular contributor to CNNSI.com and appears each Wednesday on National Public Radio's Morning Edition. His new novel, The Other Adonis (Sourcebooks Landmark), is available now at bookstores everywhere.

 

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