History Commons^™

Tiger Woods, Richard C. Crepeau

On Sport and Society

There is a character in Thomas Klise's 1974 novel, The Last Western, whose name is Willie. The young man was born in New Mexico, became a baseball pitcher with a supernatural pitch, and was of multi-racial origin. As he developed his athletic skills he quickly achieved perfection, which vaulted him into the public limelight and super stardom. Shortly the public tired of his perfection, being bored by it. He was cynically manipulated by greedy sports owners and ultimately the public turned on him.