Fallen Stars

+ With great power, comes great responsibility

Tiger Woods and Elin Nordegren have officially divorced today, a move that has been a long time coming. This hopefully puts an end to what has been a nightmare year for Woods. He has managed to fall from the top of the sport?s mountain and crash to the bottom while breaking every bone in his body on the way down. Woods, who was the first ever billion dollar athlete and world icon, is now just a man trying to put the pieces of his life back together.

This got me to thinking about other athletes who have fallen from grace in my lifetime. The first that comes to mind is O.J. Simpson. He was one of the greatest running backs of all-time but whenever his name is mentioned, that is the furthest thing from people?s mind. One of my earliest memories in sports was the O.J. trial and how it seemed to captivate America. Now thanks to O.J. and his attorney Robert Kardashian, America is captivated by, ?Keeping Up with the Kardashians.?



Next, Mike Tyson was one of the greatest boxers of all-time. He was the guy who was going to bring heavyweight boxing back. Kid Dynamite was a perfect fitting nickname for Tyson early on in his career. He was soft spoken out of the ring, but once that bell rang, he was the scariest man on the planet. Then trouble came in the form of a rape conviction, the ear-biting incident and a laundry list of other indiscretions. Mike Tyson was never the same. He was finally reduced to fighting Kevin McBride where he quit on his stool and his career was over. If you find yourself saying, ?Kevin who?? than you get my point.



The last two people I am going to lump together because they are in similar boats. Pete Rose and Roger Clemens are both greats of America?s past time who should be remembered by their play on the field, not their misconduct off of it. Pete Rose holds the all-time baseball hits record for a career. Keep in mind baseball has been around since 1869. That is pretty impressive. Roger Clemens? career wasn?t too shabby either, he is arguably the best pitcher of all-time. But since both of these guys are as stubborn as it gets and will not admit fault, baseball has disowned them. Pete Rose has been banned from baseball for betting on the sport and is not allowed in the hall of fame which is where he belongs. The jury is still out on Roger Clemens, but the world knows he did steroids and he most likely will end up going to jail for lying to congress. Either way the damage to his image is irreparable.



I always ask myself how these athletes, who are handed the world, always seem to somehow screw it up. They are paid a king?s ransom to play a child?s game. One would think it would be easy to stay straight and fly right, but apparently it is too difficult to enjoy millions upon millions of dollars trouble free. Luckily for Tiger Woods, his golf career is far from over and unlike the men on this list, he will have ample time to rebuild his image and gain back respect from the sports community.