Sports Radio Interviews

Buzz Bissinger Sounds off on Tiger

Just when you think the Tiger Woods saga is over, here we go again. Buzz Bissinger, best known for being the author of Friday Night Lights and has attack on bloggers and Will Leitch, has recently wrote an essay on Tiger Woods in this week’s issue of Vanity Fair claiming that Tiger is a narcissist and a fraud. I am not sure about him being a narcissist but he is definitely a fraud. Tiger portrayed an image to the world that he was a quiet, loving family man when all along he was a crazed, sex addict. I guess I can’t really get that mad at the guy because I wasn’t one of the many paying Tiger millions of dollars to portray an image. If it weren’t for the early morning crash on November 27th we would still be living in the dark and looking up to a guy that after all was looking down at us laughing.

Buzz Bissinger joined ESPN 101 in St. Louis to talk about what the essay that he wrote in Vanity Fair on Tiger Woods is all about, whether IMG crafted his image or Tiger, and whether he thinks the car accident changed everything.

On what the essay that he wrote in Vanity Fair on Tiger Woods is all about:

“It is like an open wound and when it seems like it is dying down it just seems to get worse and worse. From the second he hit that fire hydrant everything went wrong for him. One of the stranger things is that this was a guy that did everything right. Reacted to every situation to an appropriate gesture. Number one, they didn’t talk to the police. Number two, he wouldn’t give any kind of statement. I think that he really thought that it would go away and when he realized that it wouldn’t go away he gave kind of a very wishy, washy statement on his website. Then not one woman comes out, not two, not three, not four, not five, not six. I have lost count. What is it guys? 14 or 15 or 15? You know I don’t really know anymore and now really the (Vanity Fair) pictures are phenomenal. She (Annie Leibovitz) is really one of the greatest artists of our times… I think what is great about the pictures and what is amazing about them they sort of show what we know now is the real Tiger. He is moody in one of those pictures. He is shirtless on the cover. In another picture he is doing pull-ups. His back muscles, I mean he is so ripped he looks like a defensive back. What comes across to me in those pictures, and I am not speaking for Annie, is a guy you could tell is a narcissist. A guy who really, really loves himself but despite those images wept smiling and being affable. Not just super-confident but narcissism and a man really in love with his body.”

Whether IMG crafted his image or Tiger:

“Well Tiger was 21 at the time, although he was very sophisticated with the media, as usual the piece is very revealing. Tiger made very off-collar jokes. He made jokes about lesbians and jokes about homosexuals and jokes with racial implications and they sort of tried to blame the messenger, Charlie Pierce. He is a pro and a very good sports writer. After that I think IMG stepped in and Tiger is a very shrewd guy and IMG said Tiger you have the ability to make hundreds of billions of dollars. There has not been an athlete or person like you. Someone who is that focused and win tons of major tournaments and frankly appeals to white, corporate America, but if you are going to do it you are going to stop telling off-collar jokes and you are going to have to adopt a certain mom and apple pie image and that is exactly what he did. I think look this is beyond gossip. People commit infidelity all the time. This is about a man who crafted a very, very careful because you know what…It meant hundreds of millions of dollars and behind it was someone totally, totally different.”

Whether he thinks the car accident changed everything:

“Yes, I think it changed everything because it was so out of character for him. As I say in the story that was the first time we saw him doing anything human. I mean he was a very charming, non-person. I described him as kind of the bionic man. I mean as I said he always did the right thing but never revealed anything. When he had that accident I think people said: “Wow! He is a human being”. He had a car accident then hit a fire hydrant then it is you know…As information trickled out as information does, what is the wife doing with the golf club and what is really going on here? One thing leads to antoher. If he hadn’t had that car accident the National Enquirer wouldn’t have reported it and a lot of people would have said that they look for a lot of junk. Who cares? Let’s move on.”

Buzz Bissingertalks Tiger Woods on ESPN 101 in STL with the Fast Lane

Tags: Buzz Bissinger, cheting on wife, fraud, Friday Night Lights author, infidelity, narcissist, Tiger and Elin, Tiger Woods, Tiger Woods' downfall was women, Vanity Fair