Keep Up, Tiger

In my eyes, Tiger Woods is the world's best and most transcendent athlete; not only is he rewriting the record books of a sport old enough those marks could have been scribbled by quill, he's doing it with charm, candor, and enough pathos to headline a Shakespeare festival.

That said, there's some things he could do that would transcend mere athletics. And I agree with Scoop: he should do them.

I understand the logic that gets Michael Jordan to say "Republicans buy sneakers, too," and I understand it's made Tiger, for lack of better words, unbelievably wealthy.

But even MJ had his rougher edges, like the gambling woes he reportedly had in the mid-90s, and while he was the world's most famous man for a time, his reign was not in the era of media immersion we're in now.

Tiger's is.

Even as relative a nobody as Ira Newble advocating for change gets press and can mean real results. The number of Cavalier fans who did something about Darfur after his open letter, however small, is greater than the number who would have done so without it.

Imagine the impact Tiger could have.

Remember that Nike commercial with Tiger chiding Roger Federer for lagging behind in their Grand Slam rivalry?

Well, Ali is the high-water mark for all transcendent athletes.

Keep up, Tiger.