Lenny from Indy

This is the hot new fetish to come out of Europe.  I present to you my new obsession… the soccer bra!!!  AYE IT’S SO GLORIOUS!!!!

I am in awe of the soccer bra’s greatness.  I bow before those who wear the soccer bra.

Forgive me.  I’m a little slow.

I’ve always been a huge fan of any person who has a meteoric rise to fame.  Dude or dudette comes out of nowhere and wins a huge sports championship?  Kudos.  Dude or dudette comes out of nowhere and changes the thought process of how society thinks about something? Kudos.  Dude or dudette who wins lotto?  Kudos.   I always like to see the underdog, or the unknown win.  It’s the way I’m wired.  If its expected you’ll win, I’ll root against you.  Some of my favorite NFL players are the guys that look completely lost on the field and are on teams with players that look like they can barely tie their own shoes.  The championship is forever, though story of the rise to the mountain top is what’s most interesting.

The Steelers in 2005.  The young rookie, the long time coach, the veteran running back at the end of his career.

The Colts in 2006.  The quarterback and coach who can’t win the big one.

The Giants in 2007.  The unsure quarterback and a rag tag team of veterans up against history.

The Steelers in 2008.  The past & current coaches collide.

The Saints in 2009.  The improbable happens as the Saint over turn a precision offense.

Those were spectacular Super Bowls not only for who won, but who was on the team and the story of the players along the path to achieve greatness.

While I’m not a huge fan of golf, I am really tickled to see how incredible the story was of Tiger Woods rise to power in the gold world.  A child prodigy, the nice way of calling someone a savant has completely mastered golf by age 3.  By 1996 (age 20) he walks into this boring game where it appears the average age of a pro golfer in 55 and runs rough shot over these slow moving, stuff shirt, open mouth breathing ninnies  for well over a decade.

Tremendous right?

Apparently not.  At this point you know the current back story.  No need to re-rock Tiger’s personal woes again.

However, one point of interest to me has been the corporate world unloading off of the Tiger train in droves.  Gatorade, TAG Heuer, Gillette and General Motors.  Gone.  All took their gobs of cash and moved on with their brands intact.

What is left for Tiger and the Tiger brand?  Well… past the obvious stuff… The Tiger brand is a tad damaged.

The million dollar question about the Tiger brand, How do you fix it?

Nike knows something that the majority of everyone else doesn’t know or care to want to remember.  While what Tiger did was wrong, it wasn’t illegal.  Dude cheated on his wife.  That happens all the time in this life.  He did not kill, rape, or beat someone to death.  Dude has a lot to answer for, to his WIFE and family.  Not to sponsors, news idiots, sportscasters, jerk offs with blogs, any member of the 80′s rock band Night Ranger or you.  This isn’t going to be an easy task but let’s look at the history of Tiger & Nike.

Check this out…

They put Tiger on the map.  Opportunity and the chance to work at his craft without having to deal with anything else.  Bills, bills, bills!  Nike saw what his parents saw in Tiger.  Well, it turns out that Nike isn’t a totally heartless corporation.  Nike, Tiger’s first big time sponsor has decided to stick by him and aid in rebuilding the legend.

Rebuilding the legend.  That’s a somewhat Herculean task in today’s tabloid society.  Check out the first Nike ad with Tiger as he reenters the golf fray.

OK… I first saw this and thought nothing of it.  It sounded like an older, wiser dude sounding supportive yet disappointed, but he sounds supportive of Tiger.  He sounds reassuring that he will be able to get up off the ground, dust yourself off, fix your mistakes, and move on with your life.  I saw that commercial online and thought how incredibly powerful that statement was in a 30 second commercial.

Then, at a later date (remember… I’m slow.  I said that at the top of this post) I find out that that is the voice of Tiger’s father, Earl Woods.

OH SNAP!

Tiger’s dad died in 2006.  It’s 2010.  A totally out of context clip of his dad in a commercial!  The Earl talking part of the commercial was taken from a 2004 interview from the documentary DVD “Tiger: The Authorized DVD Collection”

In this whole upside down, none of our business drama we come to a end of this Tiger chapter with words from Tiger’s father????

His future earnings in the sponsorship world are 100% dependent on if he is now re-accepted into the world by the douche bags who built him up to be a mortal walking among us because he was able to play golf at 3 years old.

AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO FINDS THIS COMPLETELY AWESOME?!?!?!?!?!?

“Hello world.”

…He got carried away…but…who could blame him?

Sometimes I wonder, “When will someone step up the dinner game?  Who is going to change the paradigm of the sit down dinner?”

I now wonder no more….

www.dinnerinabottle.com

Pure genius.