True mythos is hard to come by these days, especially in professional sports.  Athletes used to be heroes, or at least that’s what I’m told.  Now, they’re just celebrities who wear the same clothes every time they perform.  But there’s one guy who has managed to keep heroism alive, at least on the field of play. 

He was a confluence of races with a sovereign smile and a killer name, and he arrived as if he had been born not just to win golf tournaments and out-earn everyone except Oprah on the Forbes list of highest-paid celebrities, but also to redeem the racist history of his sport and cure a thousand other ills as well. Over the top with pride, his father, Earl, was quoted calling him “the Chosen One” and prophesying that Tiger would “do more than any other man in history to change the course of humanity.”

And with that unusual prediction, thus begins this great profile of Tiger Woods, whose international fame is going on 12 years, and whose mythos only gets better.

As of last weekend, the New England Patriots finished their season 16-0.  This is the first flawless regular season since that of the 1972 Miami Dolphins (a Super Bowl seems de rigeur at this point).  Despite the bread-and-circus culture of professional football, sports are one of the enduring metaphors for life, for battle, and for the struggle to make it on Earth (message to most women: This is why most men like sports).  I must say, I have very little enthusiasm for the NFL, but the Patriots are reminding me what’s great about any sport, and for that, I’m thankful.

Forget what you know about successful high school football programs and the raucous lives of the young athletes.  One football team from a small Kansas town (outscoring opponents this season 704 to zero) is making records and doing it in innovative (which might be considered an old-fashioned) way: “Each player and cheerleader signs a contract pledging to remain alcohol-, drug- and tobacco-free. If they break that promise, they must go to the elementary school to explain to the children why they were kicked off their team […]”