There’s been a lot of fallout from the presentation of the Presidential Medal Of Freedom to Tiger Woods.
The uninformed media outlets have claimed Tiger Woods was honored because “Trump likes him” or because he’s done some business with Trump prior to The Donald winning the presidency.
What wasn’t mentioned in the Rose Garden is Tiger’s work away from the golf course.
Many may get the idea that this award went to Tiger Woods for his achievements in the world of golf — and they are beyond impressive. Eight-one wins with number 82 a pretty strong possibility in the near future. Fifteen major championships — second only to Jack Nicklaus’ 18.
But let’s take a look at the real legacy of Tiger Woods, the real reason he is most deserving of the highest award our country can bestow on a civilian.
You may or may not know about what is now called TGR Learning Lab. It began as the Tiger Woods Learning Center. It is a 35,000-square-foot studio located on 1 Tiger Woods Way in California. It is a a brick-and-mortar mountain of educational opportunity. The Learning Lab, which opened in 2006, is the cornerstone of Tiger’s mission to provide children a safe place to learn, explore and grow. The Lab offers students from low-income households and underfunded schools a vast variety of classes in the fields of science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM for short.
It’s a reversal of the original mission of the foundation. It started as a means to teach golf to children. Then came 9/11 and Tiger had an epiphany of sorts.
“I thought to myself that if I was in one of the Towers, the way the foundation was set up, the foundation would cease and desist,” Woods recalled many years ago. “Education came first when I was a kid. I couldn’t play golf or play with my friends until I did my homework. And I had to do it correctly and get good grades. So why was the foundation golf first?”
Tiger changed the foundation’s mission, shifting its focus from running junior golf clinics for inner city kids to emphasizing education. He envisioned his foundation as a hub for STEM (Science, Technology, Education, Math) education for kids from underprivileged communities.
The foundation evolved over the years. In addition to the Learning Lab, there are satellite hubs in Washington, D.C., New York City, Philadelphia, Virginia, and Florida. In total, these campuses have served more than 165,000 kids over the last decade, a majority being minorities. Professional development workshops have been held for around 5,000 STEM educators from underfunded schools.
That isn’t good enough in Tiger’s eyes. He wants to broaden the scope of its impact to serve millions of children annually, and TGR has partnered with Discovery Education to create a digital campus for educators around the world to tap into the STEM curriculum.
More than 50 STEM classes are offered. There are classes in sports science, nutrition and fitness, video game design and oceanography. There are classes involving DNA analysis and animal dissection. Some students are building rockets, others a scaled-down rollercoaster. One class experiment had students get fast-food hamburgers to measure the sugar and fat content in the beefy servings to see the difference from one burger to another.
“They have 10-year-olds doing coding now, it’s crazy,” Tiger added. “I just keep telling the foundation to keep pushing it, keep growing it. It’s a different world now. It’s geared to high-tech, and these kids aren’t the most fortunate kids, so for them to have access to all the different platforms that pretty much all the other kids in private schools have is important and vital.
“We’re trying to make it a level playing field.”
The numbers are staggering. Eighty-two percent of the students who have gone through the Learning Lab program improved their grades, 87 percent began planning careers and 91 percent became more optimistic about their futures. The Earl Woods Scholar program, named for Tiger’s late father, includes counseling, mentoring, specialized internships and financial assistance for the nearly 200 students who earned passage to go to college. Ninety-eight percent were first-generation college attendees, with 98.9 percent graduating.
So anyone who questions this award, questions if Tiger Woods is worthy, they need to look at what his foundation has accomplished.
The facts and the children who go through his programs are a living testimony.
Worthy of the medal?
Damn right — he’s worthy.
4 Comments
baxter cepeda
Outstanding explanation of how Tigers charitable work alone have earned his this honor. His business practices alone. His major record alone. His wins on the pga tour alone. Worldwide wins. The 97 win for the ages. The Torrey putt where it’s exactly what we expected. And of course the resilience from this years Masters. Each and every one on its own is worthy of this honor. Tiger has made his mistakes but this man should get 5 of these things …and he is so far from done.
Tom Edrington
Baxter, what a journey, the mug shot, sleeping on the side of the highway in Jupiter, battle with pain killers (it only takes about 5 days to hit dependency, they wrote me prescriptions for three different pain killers prior to my knee replacement surgery in January, I didn’t fill any of them)….he hit rock-bottom and bounced back and that makes anyone appreciate things in a different perspective, this version of Tiger is more down-to-earth, a bit more humble and knows that his kids are old enough to read things written about him….he shows up at their sports functions around Jupiter……this version of Tiger Woods is way more likeable….
RM
Agree totally. He’s taken some raps and done some things that have caused some folks to dislike him. Fine. But let’s also give credit where credit is due. Well said, Tom.
Tom Edrington
Thanks RM, I had a guy who used to be an artist at The Tampa Tribune badmouth Tiger, basically because he hangs around with DT from time to time but no one said anything when he’d play golf with Obama…yes, the foundation is doing amazing work with children, a much better after-school activity than the First Tee.