But the real thrust of the commercial is Nike making an every-chemical-in-the-cupboard approach to removing the tarnish from the LeBron James Brand.

For those of you who’ve missed out, the athletic apparel company in its full high-gloss brilliance opens on James back in his familiar school gym setting, wearing the same clothes he wore during his infamous ESPN Decision special that marks the seminal moment he went from the face of the league, to its pariah. Also in the commercial are a series of hypothetical scenarios involving the current and possible future state of his reputation (no one shows up to his Hall of Fame induction ceremony, he quits basketball and moves to television, etc.) all while the phrase “what should I do?” is repeated ad nauseum.

As a commercial, it plays just too damn cynical. As if filming a multi-million dollar mea culpa designed to ensure the company still gets paid is all the James naysayers needed to rejoin the bandwagon. And for those who never left the bandwagon? Well, they probably liked those awful Nike puppet commercials too.

As an advertising tactic, however, Nike has taken a step into a whole new realm this year. The company has made its fortune on hand-picking the best athletes in the country and illuminating each of them as being wholly special. The danger is, and always has been, what happens when these imperfect people do something imperfect enough that it can’t be ignored? Nike’s answer has become to halt the sale of apparel and to produce 60-second, million-dollar public relations pieces that play like public service announcements. If any politician in any realm of government ever got his hands on Nike’s ad department, there wouldn’t be an election he or she couldn’t win.

Earlier this year, Nike spin doctored the insanity coming from Tiger Woods‘ Thanksgiving drive into a light pole and the ensuing sewage that erupted from that incident by producing a well-received ad of Woods – alone – listening to the voice of his dead father. The piece was clearly saying, “we all make mistakes, it’s not too late to turn things around.” Added to which the only sound in the spot is of a Woods’ father, a known-philanderer, the audience is supposed to be reminded that even the monster that is Tiger Woods has a family. He’s only human.

Woods’ spot, just like James,’ is more intriguing than entertaining and only intriguing when you consider the motivation of the ad men who work for Phil Knight. Nike used to have its finger on a certain pulse of its demographic. When it produced Charles Barkley’s “I’m Not A Role Model” spot in 1993 (James winks at this spot in his current ad – another example of Nike’s self-referential cynicism) it struck a chord with audiences because Barkley was a role model despite his reputation for being tough and ornery. The difference between that commercial 17 years ago and a commercial with Barkley, say, last year after getting pulled over for drunk driving is that Barkley had never done anything that the public perceived as being bad. The Woods and James spots are apologies, not warnings. Not statements. Not even clear ownership of who these individuals are.

In the end, it all strikes me as infuriating. Nike is willing to acknowledge that their poster boys do bad things, but not that, perhaps, they shouldn’t be poster boys. This isn’t a judgment call on either athlete – or any athlete facing similar backlash – I don’t really care about James and anyone who thinks Tiger Woods hasn’t paid for his actions is out of his mind. But when a company like Nike begins airing its damage control over and over (and if you watch as much basketball as I do, over and over and over  and over), one can’t help but wonder if someone shouldn’t be producing PR ads for Nike. After all, they branded James and Woods (and, oh yeah, sexual harasser Brett Favre, accused rapist Kobe Bryant and dog-lover Michael Vick) in the first place.

LeBron James is as poor a reflection on Nike as on LeBron James and as uninterested as I am in apologies from fools and louts, I’m even less interested in pleas from multi-billion dollar corporations to continue increasing their net growth disguised as an apology.

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Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, bears are finally past giving condescending warnings about forest fires.

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Monday Interested in seeing a matador get gored in the crotch 4-inches deep? I know, right? Me too! Bull Fighting
Tuesday The WNBA: Where childhood abuse eventually leads to a career. Basketball
Wednesday Indians announcer Bruce Drennan saw last week’s episode of “Treme” and now he’s all about yellin’ into the YouTube. Baseball
Thursday A famous golfer involving himself with a porn star? Interesting. A DVD of that porn star talking about that involvement? Less so. Golf
Friday Deadspin.com’s Give-Tebow-A-Nickname contest is waaaay better than ESPN’s. My vote is for “Fail Mary.” College Football
Saturday Gilbert Arenas was released from his halfway house, but couldn’t remember the combo to his home’s security gate. Basketball
Sunday Funny or Die present: Jim Brockmire: A Legend in the Booth (a little NSFW language). Baseball
Eighth Day Does this mean all those hairy Kardashian sisters are Flyers fans?

Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, “Charm” isn’t a word I’d ever  associate with the Lingerie Football League.

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Monday Wow. Um, yeah but can you do it twice, Bango? Basketball
Tuesday The Top 200 Fantasy Baseball Team Names. Who are the creative masterminds naming their team “The Boston Red Sox?” Baseball
Wednesday This just in: LeBron is still a tremendous jerk. Basketball
Thursday Tiger’s got his own sneaker … and so do all his lady friends too, I guess. Golf
Friday Miguel Olivo is more of a man than you (or, for our female readers, more of a man than your man) Baseball
Saturday The Most Exciting 2 Minutes In Sports. Set your watch to it. Horse Racing
Sunday A Pirates fan vowed to bet $20 AGAINST his team every game this season. Here’s a spreadsheet of how it’s going. Baseball
Eighth Day The Women’s Movement moves right into Charm City (and shoulder pads).

Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, the city of Sydney employs boats full of shark repellent to watch over triathlon … along with a nut named Quint.

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Monday Remember when Apollo “Count of Monte-Fisto” Creed used James Brown in his awesomely-indulgent entrance to the fight against Drago minutes before getting sent to the hospital in “Rocky IV?” Yeah well, here’s Bernard Hopkin’s entrance from Saturday. Boxing
Tuesday You put buttered popcorn in Kenyon Martin’s whip, he’s gonna put his hands on you. Audio! Basktball
Wednesday Take a look at an animated view of your seats from any ballpark. Baseball
Thursday A long overdue Pistol Pete Maravich feature. Basketball
Friday Young boy gets insightful/horrifying glance at what a lifetime of White Sox fandom will do to you. Baseball
Saturday “Tiger Woods, you suck! Go*****it!” It’s like he read our minds. Golf
Sunday Nothing better than watchin’ old stadiums get blown up. Football
Eighth Day You go to the triathlon, triathletes go in the water. Shark’s go in the water – our shark. Triathlon

Is there any way Mr. Woods is going to let this spread to train stops, billboards, loony bins or wherever else PETA has deemed it strategically useful to advertise?

Probably not, but it seems that getting sued is actually part of the organization’s guerrilla ad strategy.

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Literally no woman is safe from Tiger’s advances.

Yeah. This story just got soap opera-y.

And no soap is complete without a little scum, so I can only wonder why the fact that Tiger Woods’ attractive 30-year-old wife has an equally attractive 30-year-old identical twin sister hasn’t become a bigger deal.

I don’t want to hear about journalistic ethics or a disinterested public or someone’s right to privacy. Not now. Not with this case. All those particulars bounced out of the Land Rover and got pummeled with a golf club right alongside Tiger.

For six weeks, the entire world has speculated or regurgitated someone else’s speculation about the goings-on of Tiger Woods and his harem of ladies, why is there not more chatter about Josefin Lönnborg even existing!?

Look, I’m not painting a picture with my dirty brush, okay. This is not a call to drag Mrs. Lönnborg into a mess she is in no way involved in. But her sister is involved in this mess. Quite a mess, really. It might not be such a depraved idea to suggest the two sisters have strategize this mix-up to their advantage, “Parent-Trap”-style.

Elin’s wearing her wedding ring. Now she’s not. She’s in Sweden. She’s in Florida. She used to be so neat and tidy and suddenly she’s rebellious. After a while, the press would know that they never knew which was Tiger Woods’ wife and which was boring ol’ Josefin. Nordegren hasn’t any hope of stopping the irresponsible media outlets that don’t care to check sources or print retractions, but she can punk more than a few reliable outlets into backing off out of constant fear of being wrong.

So maybe they both vacation in Fiji and slip into the woman’s room where paparazzi can’t (shouldn’t) follow. One comes out, followed by the other. Did they switch clothes? Why aren’t either wearing a wedding ring? Did neither of them switch clothes and they are who they appear to be? “Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line!”

Three weeks ago, everything was different for Tiger Woods. That’s not that long ago. Twenty-one days ago, he was a billionaire who changed the game of golf forever and did it as a pillar of society.

He was John Galt … if John Galt had infidelity issues. Which, I guess would make him Henry Reardon. Either way, he was better than us.

Some might cringe at the suggestion that anyone is better than anyone else. Don’t cringe. It’s unbecoming. Your face looks vaguely reptilian when you scrunch it up like that. Relax your muscles and realize that we encouraged Woods to be better than us. It’s what he was selling, and seeing as how he’s a billionaire, I’d say we were happy to buy it.

Tiger Woods, in reality, isn’t worse than the other athletes with front page scandals. Kobe Bryant may or may not have raped someone (he definitely fooled around). Mike Tyson had his fair share of lady-problems. Michael Jordan is a gambling addict. Pete Rose too.  Charles Barkley drives recklessly with lady friends. Ray Lewis and O.J. Simpson have both been suspected of murder. Manny Pacquiao has cheated on his wife at least once and is under scrutiny for having recently done it again. Andre Agassi wore a wig. Plaxico Burress wore sweatpants in public. Barry Bonds, Lance Armstrong, Marion Jones, Alex Rodriguez, Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, Roger Clemens, Sammy Sosa, Mark McGwire, Milli-Vanilla … they all lipsynched their songs. That’s pretty bad, no?

Tiger Woods? All he did was treat his wife like Tony Soprano treated Carmela. And that show was on HBO for eight years! People loved it. So why has it only taken three weeks for Woods to go from pillar to pariah? He’s still great at golf, right? Why is everyone leaving? Where’s everyone going? And why?

Tiger Woods sold himself – not his skill – to the public. His ability to hit a golf ball with power and accuracy is why we cared to examine Woods further, sure, but he made his fortune from the public measuring ourselves against him. And just as one can only measure something accurately if it is shorter than the measuring stick, so too was it true that Tiger Woods had to be better than all of us in order to see how we stacked up.

People get upset if you lie about the skills you have. They’ll drop you forever if you lie about the kind of person you are.

No one ever believed Bryant was perfect. He was always cunning and a teensy bit cold. A hard worker, always. But a good man? I dunno. Probably not. Because he never seemed like he cared to be liked. He cared to be respected. Same thing with Jordan or Armstrong. They never wrapped their personal lives in with their profession. The media tried (they always try), but fans know the difference between the media connecting the dots and the athlete doing it for them.

Woods carved out a place for himself in the public eye as a family man and a son who’d learned the lessons taught to him by a loving family and heckuva father. The media didn’t connect those dots. His advertisers did. They packaged it, sent it out and if you were one of the millions who bought it, then this has been a nasty three weeks for you too. Not as bad as Tiger, but still bad. Bad because his connection with his family, the institute of marriage and the lessons handed down through generations of fathers was something that many of us aspire to. Hell, it’s something that many of us achieve. Just like Tiger Woods. I can’t hit a golf ball more than 250 yards, I haven’t been able to dunk in five years and I’m scared of a 97 mph fastball, but I can raise a family. I can learn from my parents and be a real man.

Just like Tiger Woods.

Unless I can’t, just like Tiger Woods. Unless it’s as impossible as sinking a 40-foot putt. Because if John Galt isn’t perfect, then true brilliance must be a myth. And if this ruler isn’t accurate, what does that say about everything I’ve measured with it?

But I promised you a silver lining, didn’t I? A bright side to what has shaken more lives than any athlete should be able.

The bright side here is that Tiger Woods was, and to some, is, a man among men. Someone who meant more than just golf. Maybe by tearing him down, people will learn to stop building guys like him up so high. The word I’m looking for here is skepticism. But a more deeply-rooted skepticism than before.

Those who never found room for sports in their lives will continue to scoff. Let ‘em. Nothing to be done about them. Those who looked to athletes and the games they played as something that could save them … well, they still can, they’re just going to have to be careful now. More aware. Less accepting. So next time, we’ll all pause before selecting our heroes. We’ll pause to decide if we even want to select a hero.

It’s not that the public will slay potential superstars from developing, it’s that we’ll be paying attention to their development. It’ll be a defensive tactic. A way to protect ourselves from more falsehoods. We won’t get fooled again. Greatness on the playing field will always be awarded with accolades. Bet on it.  It’s how we think about these men and women once the exit the playing field that needs to change, because that’s what hurts us.

Had we been told 15 years ago that Tiger Woods was a) going to be the most miraculous golfer of this or, perhaps, any other generation and b) he will demonstroubly cheat on his wife for years with multiple people, how would it have affected the way we look at Tiger Woods today?

Could it be much worse than how things have played out these last three weeks?

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Photos courtesy of Flickr

Here’s a recap of the weirdest or most overlooked sports stories on the Interweb this week. Plus, as you’ve come to expect, all blondes look alike when they’re half-naked.

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Monday Turns out, college refs are human after all and should be blacklisted accordingly. College Basketball
Tuesday Yeah, Kim Sears is hot. But have you played “Call of Duty?” It’s really, really fun, man. Tennis
Wednesday Goats, Bartmen, Rookies of the Year, the World Series lie from 1918 … just toss Norman Rockwell on the pile of curses plaguing the Cubs. Baseball
Thursday A member of the U.S. speedskating teams thinks the team’s major sponsor, Stephen Colbert, is “a jerk,” doesn’t elaborate. Olympics
Friday If I told you the U.S. curling team would peddle condoms to earn money, would that be something you’d be interested in? Olympics
Saturday How do you know a boring game of hoops is happening? When the man with the ball stops to tie his shoe in the middle of play. Basketball
Sunday Nothin’ weird about this Tiger Woods clip from China … except maybe the officer’s mohawk. Other than that, totally normal.  Golf
Eighth Day Before crashing the White House party, Michaele Salahi crashed a D.C. Redskins reunion. In a vacuum, you have to admit, she’s a bit of a badass.

…I’m totally getting rid of my Gillette razor.

What? The Patriots got punched in the mouth on Monday? Well, were they at home when it happened? No? Well, still …