First, what photo could be more metaphorically appropriate than this: Tiger Woods at the bottom of a slide? Of course, it’s Tiger circa 1981, in kindergarten, when a man could hit bottom, scramble through the tanbark and climb right back to the top again within a minute or so. Not so easy these days. Especially when you’ve got old quotes dogging you as well as old girlfriends.
Remember Tiger’s former kindergarten teacher, who showed up at a Gloria Allred press conference recently to say that Tiger is a bit of a fibber? In 2004, Tiger was quoted in a book by Charles Barkley as saying that he was the victim of racial violence as a kindergartner. Not so, says his teacher, Maureen Decker. And now she’s backed by a former kindergarten classmate of Tiger’s, Richard Romero. He also says Tiger was less than truthful with those claims.
From the New York Daily News (with awesome Tiger-in-kindergarten photo, and the actual tree, circa 2010, to which he was supposedly tied):
“No, never happened,” said Richard Romero, a classmate of Woods in kindergarten and first grade.
Since the mid-1990s at least, Woods and his supporters have claimed the playground at Cerritos Elementary School in Anaheim, Calif., was the scene of a vicious racial attack in 1981.
Woods has said sixth-grade bullies tied him to a tree on his first day of school, spray-painted him with the N-word and threw rocks at him — while his teacher “didn’t really do much of anything.”
Now, Romero and his mother, Linda Kunishima, are coming to the defense of Maureen Decker, the retired schoolteacher whom Woods described as indifferent to the alleged attack.
Both are saying that Tiger’s allegations are absolutely false, and that the story is part of the image he has crafted of himself as a person who has succeeded despite racial prejudice. Woods has embraced the “tied to a tree” story on many occasions, including, according to the Daily News:
* In 1993, when Los Angeles Times columnist Bill Plaschke asked if the crowds that followed the 17-year-old junior golfer at the L.A. Open that year included any of the people who attacked Woods because “he was the only brown-skinned child in the class.”
* In December 1996, in a Sports Illustrated article.
* In 1997, in John Strege’s biography, “Tiger.”
* Again in 1997, in an interview with Barbara Walters.
* In 2005, in Barkley’s book Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?
Romero, 35, who works for Federal Express in Anaheim, reached out to Gloria Allred, the celebrity lawyer who represents Decker and two of Woods’ mistresses, last week at the behest of his mother.
“I said, ‘Do this for Mrs. Decker. She took a part of her life to give to you and your classmates and all the students who have followed,’” Kunishima said.
Kunishima remembered only one tree on the playground, a sapling not much thicker than a golf club.
“There’s no way he was tied to any tree,” Kunishima said. “There was one tree that I recall in the yard in the playground area. I want to call it a sapling tree. It still had the board attached to it.”
I’m actually surprised that the story wasn’t brought up in Woods’ Masters press conference on Monday; Decker had appeared with Allred to dispute Woods’ story the previous Friday. It is, after all, a pretty enormous thing to claim that your teacher knew of a racist attack like that and chose to ignore it. I really don’t blame Decker for being pissed, if in fact it’s not true.
So once again, Tiger Woods and a tree are inexorably linked in the drama that has become his life, circa 2010. Is another apology press conference forthcoming? And if so, will they serve Graham crackers and milk?.
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Tiger Woods’ kindergarten classmate trashes golfer’s abuse allegations, defends teacher [New York Daily News]
New woman comes forward in Tiger scandal … his kindergarten teacher [Out of Bounds]
