This is probably going to come off as totally immature but I don’t care. I often have a lot of trouble understanding marriages. Men and women simply have different expectations, whether they’re conscious of them or not, when they make that initial commitment. These expectations frequently conflict and it amazes me how surprised people are when they finally do. That’s not to say marriages can’t work. They can and do, it just takes a great deal of emotional honesty in order for it to work long term. Any psychologist will tell you, most people, not excluding the athletes we revere, have trouble properly explaining their deepest emotions, don’t really know why they’re feeling them and for the most part are clueless on how to manage them. We all have primitive emotional needs and those that want to be happy will act to satisfy those needs. When one person in the match is an exceptionally powerful individual by societies standards, there’s an entirely different soup of emotional needs that surround the participants in that marriage which few understand and most vilify when acted upon. I’m not speculating here, this is biology .

I think questioning Tiger’s morality is fair. But that’s as far as I want to go down this freshly paved road of allegations towards Tiger. I’m not in a position to judge him. And I think this topic deserves more than just using a giant brush to paint over the whole situation with the he cheated, he’s a bad, bad man assertion made by, well, everyone. I was going to expand on that but then I read this article by Jason Whitlock that does it better than I ever could.

Just so I’m being clear, I’m not condoning Woods’ actions, rather I’d prefer to look beyond them and discuss the issues manifested as a result of what transpired. In the same way, I choose not to point fingers at sociopaths and state the obvious. It’s more constructive, in my mind at least to wonder how a story has come about and then contributing to the discussion and reaction that follows.

Anyway, I highly recommend that everyone take the time to read that article. While you’re doing that, try to put aside your predisposed reaction to individuals that engage in adultery and open yourself up to think about this issue critically, especially how it relates to professional athletes. Then come back here, tell me your opinion and call me a pig for trying to poke holes in the sacred institution of marriage.

Update:

This is that crazy video of Herm Edwards on SportsCenter that Bill Simmons has been talking about and that Jason Whitlock mentioned in his column. Best line in the entire rant: "Shame on the people that have been involved in this guys life for the last ten-fifteen years and watched this guy go down this road and not tell him, ‘You know what? DON’T GO DOWN THAT ROAD!" As Whitlock said, "Tiger is a grown-ass man with a billion dollars." Who in the world is in any kind of position to tell this guy what he should and shouldn’t be doing?

Looking back, I think that one of the reasons I kept my hair longer than most was because of how insecure I felt about my appearance as a teenager. It wasn’t that I was overly insecure, this was just how I dealt with those feelings. When something matters so much, like personal appearances did at that age, one thing you can do to reduce potentially hurtful judgment from others is to do something that proves you’re immune to that kind of criticism. People couldn’t criticize my appearance because by growing my hair out it sent the message that my appearance was of little concern to me. Actually, just like everyone else, it was of concern to me, this was just one of the ways I managed those feelings of insecurity.

* * *

I came across a video the other day that made my jaw drop. Then it broke my heart.

This is Stefani Germanotta, a former NYU student, performing two of her totally original songs . You know her now as the famous Lady Gaga. What the hell happened, you’re probably wondering?

Of course I can only speculate but it seems to me that the way in which Germanotta battled her insecurities as a creative musician and a young adult, was to concede to what the pop culture machine wanted to make her into. And now she has lousy songs and a sleazy image attached to her name. To her, she’s probably still that same person she was on stage the night of that NYU talent show. But the world never sees that side of her anymore.

* * *

Everyone at some point in their lives — usually when we’re adolescents or teenagers or young adults — are attracted to the hipster culture (not like in the ’50s sense but behaving like a social critic, sorta). This is when we’re defining ourselves and creating our identity. At this time, we are acutely aware of what we feel is cool and what is cliche. Think about the irony that’s at the core of being a hipster. And at the core of irony, in the context of creating an identity, is loathing.

“I really hate when people label me a bookworm so I’m going to lie and insist I don’t read or study when infact it’s pretty much all I do.”

So how is it that we even begin to loathe something? Well that’s leading into a nature/nurture discussion. Without getting too over the top with all this, I consider loathing to be a cocktail of sorts with different mixtures of fear, ignorance, and anger. During a personal transition period, these feelings are awakened because we’re adjusting the identity we previously created or were in the process of creating. The fact of the matter is, we fear change, we’re ignorant of what’s really ahead, and we’re a little pissed off that we’re loosing some of the stability in our lives. Those are strong feelings and are very difficult to acknowledge, let alone manage. You better believe they can effect our actions in real life. They can make us do bizarre and uncharacteristic things.

* * *

I think we all need to remember that, when we watch young professional athletes. Tyler Myers is 19-years-old. Remember Patrick Kane ? These are young adults that are suddenly put under a tremendous amount of pressure to perform a game based on a great deal of luck and fortune. There is no substitute for experience. They may understand what to expect, but you can’t prepare yourself for the emotions you’re going to feel in the moment and after.

From a fans perspective, there is so much ambiguity in predicting the performance of an athlete that most expectations are often inaccurate. There will be signs, but even those can be misleading. They’re human, after all. And with the high pressure nature of professional sports, insecurities, that everyone has, can be particularly troublesome for all players to overcome, particularly for the younger ones. You always hear coaches tell rookies and young players to keep it simple so mistakes are minimized and to forget about them quickly when they’re made. Who knows though how players are going to react after crisis moments that, by the way, are absolutely inevitable? I think we can all come up with four or five players formerly or currently on the Sabres that had trouble managing their response to crisis, veterans and rookies. Everybody is different. It’s how they respond that matters.

They could do what Stefani Germanotta did and become something that they’re not. Instead of allowing people to judge her for who she really is and risking the possibility of being disliked, criticized or even hated, she wears costumes and sings provocatively about sex because in this society there is a large preexisting group that will accept you with open arms for that.

What’s the best way to overcome and manage these insecurities digging at our emotional bellies during our most vulnerable moments? Granted, I’m not a professional athlete or talented musician but for me, it was learning to not be so fucking hard on myself. Along the same lines, there’s no reason to fear a friend or family member or audience member or fan’s reaction because ultimately their response can never change an action or choice you already made. Just process these things and move forward, assuming your judgment is clear. If that’s the case, trust your instincts but know your limitations too. Then, after reaching a margin, try and expand it through knowledge and by the accumulation of experiences. Actions based on ignorance will lead down dangerous roads. With regards to your flaws, be honest and acknowledge them like you would a stain on a shirt. Just wash it out, don’t be lazy and let the shirt sit in the corner of your bedroom where the stain will soak in. It’s okay , everyone has flaws. Accept and manage them.

The worst thing you can do is cover up and ignore your flaws by becoming someone that you’re not out of fear that once you present your genuine, flawed self, you might make a mistake and, worse, someone might criticize or hate you for it.

The more I started to flesh out the ideas I had about the importance of good character and how little of it young athletes seem to have, the more I realized how inadequate a position I’m in to criticize Kane’s behavior. I have flaws (as my former girl friends would gladly attest) and I’ve made regrettable mistakes too. It’s clear to me though that our age is just about all that Kane and I share in common. The best way to gain perspective on Kane’s actions is through exploring the lives of other professional athletes, particularly those that were productive early in their careers.

Recently, I watched a few clips some of Mike Tyson’s latest documentary and I started thinking about how much emotional energy Tyson put into his boxing career. His persona was iconic and it sometimes spilled beyond his professional career and into his personal life. How could you expect anything different from Tyson, or any young athlete for that matter? He was ill equipped to maintain a stable personal life while achieving so much professionally.

To be a great professional, athlete or otherwise, one not only needs the talent and the passion, but also the belief that you belong amongst the best. Tyson succeed on all accounts. It was clearly his personal life that led to his demise as a professional boxer. What caused his personal life to derail? It certainly wasn’t his talent in the boxing ring or his passion for the sport. It was his overwhelming belief in his superiority over other boxers which sometimes caused him to act similarly towards the people around him.

You have to remember that these are people who do their jobs with an unfathomable amount of viewers. The pressure that comes with that is something that most people, myself included, cannot understand. Ask yourself this, what is the greatest number of people that have watched you do anything? Is the answer to that question anywhere near the numbers these athletes perform their jobs in front of? We can only speculate on the psychological demands involved in that.

Professional athletes also have an unwavering connection to the consumers that indirectly pay their salaries. We learn new details about athlete’s lives every single day from the media. Tyson never missed an opportunity to confirm his greatness when speaking to the press. Admittedly, he wanted to strike fear in his opponents and to grow his reputation as a prodigious fighter. I think that Tyson also put on this show for himself. Publicly reaffirming your greatness is a terrific way to find the motivation to live up to those expectations. We see this kind of behavior all the time from current athletes. It’s not always ego that drives athletes to speak out to the press. I suspect that an honest, self aware athlete will tell you that occasional public outbursts help maintain an ultra competitive state of mind.

As far as Kane is concerned, his situation is a bit different as he did not grow up in an unsavory environment like Tyson did. On all other accounts however, his professional career is not all that different from Tyson’s or any other athlete who has had success at a young age.

So where does that leave us given Kane’s behavior towards the cab driver? Everything our parents taught us and Kane’s parents taught him about how to treat people can be thrown out the window as far as I’m concerned. Not many of us have had the magnitude of success Kane has achieved so early in a career with such intense public attention. How did he do it? Certainly having a great deal of talent and passion for the game helps. But without having an unnaturally strong belief in his own abilities, Kane almost certainly wouldn’t have made it this far. That’s what it takes to make it as a professional athlete in 2009. Being emotionally balanced is not a virtue, it’s a hindrance.

On one hand we praise him for being mentally discipline enough to get the most out of his physical talent while on the other hand we vilify him when he behaves with that same edge that has helped him achieve so much success in hockey.

No doubt this was act of terrible judgment but we as a society need to take some responsibility here. Eventually Kane will mature and learn to separate his approach to the game of hockey from his social interactions with others. Until then, we should cut him some slack. He is still learning. While most of us will insist we would never act the way Kane did on that infamous night, few, if any, are in a position to relate or understand what it’s like to be in Kane’s shoes.