WHERE HAVE YOU GONE, JOE DIMAGGIO

It has been quite a week in sports news, especially at the Masters and with the Pittsburgh Steelers' Ben Roethlisberger.

First, the Masters. It's wonderful to see someone defy Leo Durocher's famous line that "nice guys finish last", case in point being Phil Mickelson winning the tournament by three strokes with a gutsy four days of fine golf. Tiger Woods did a good job, in view of his five-month absence from competition, finishing fourth, although he is catching flak for an outburst of profanity after publically saying he would try to control his temper. Tiger is only human (how well we have seen that these lasr few months!), but he has put himself in a position where every minute he is under a microscope of public examination and will be held to the most exacting behavioural standards. Maybe that's not fair, but that's how it is when you screw up bigtime. At least he seemed to make a conscious effort to relate to the public. Mickelson is a case study of courage, which Hemingway defined as "grace under pressure", and Tiger could do well to emulate his example.

As for Big Ben, to put it mildly, he is suffering from an image problem of epic proportions after his latest sexual encounter. A talented quarterback with infinite talent and future possibilities, he keeps heading down the path of self-destruction blindly and willfully. In his short sports life, to reckon with a life-threatening motorcycle accident where he defied his football contract and endangered his life and to be involved in two sexual abuse incidents within a year (even if he was not charged criminally) is self-destructive behaviour, almost willful self-damage. I hope the Rooney family, owners of the Steelers, or Roger Goodell, the NFL Commissioner, really sock it to him in a suspension. I also think he needs serious counseling in ethical behaviour to cure his addiction to reckless and thoughtless actions. The warning bell has sounded, and it is deafening.

Of course, we sports fans are guilty of creating monsters in our sports heroes. We cultivate and distort the old Vince Lombardi truism, 'Winning isn't everything, it's the only thing", so that sports heroes begin to think they are not subject to the same ethical standards as we ordinary mortals. All I can think of are the wistful lyrics of Simon and Garfunkel: "Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio, a hungry nation yearns for you", or days of yore when sports heroes quietly let their accomplishments speak for them and went about their business of performance. (Joe DiMaggio had his celebrity time in the limelight when he married Marilyn Monroe, but even his subsequent divorce was relatively quiet.)

Even sports heroes need to be held responsible for their actions and are accountable. It is an obvious fact we keep forgetting.