The athlete as activist: Tiger Woods sure can hit a golf ball. Does that mean he should take a stand on social causes?

• Author: Chass, Murray
• Position: Sports

Tiger Woods has won the prestigious Masters golf tournament three times, an extraordinary feat for a 27-year-old. But he hasn't been able to win the public relations war over the refusal of the Augusta National Golf Club, site of the Masters, to accept women members.

What does Woods have to do with women trying to gain entry to a private club in Augusta, Georgia? Plenty, according to a prominent women's rights group, which demanded that Woods, as a minority athlete, take a stand against the discriminatory policy.

Woods has said he would like to see a female member at Augusta National, but that the club has a fight to set up its membership however it chooses.

Woods is not the first athlete asked to use his stature on behalf of a social issue. One sports expert says it's the price of the fame and wealth that comes with super-celebrity in sports and entertainment.

"To those who are given great things, great things are expected," says Mary Jo Kane, a sports sociologist at the University of Minnesota. "If you are in a privileged position, you have a responsibility to make things better for others."

PROGRESS ON THE FIELD

One reason people might expect social activism from athletes is because of the major role that sports has played in the larger culture. When Jackie Robinson became the first black baseball player in the Major Leagues in 1947, he carried on his rugged shoulders the fight of all black players and their future in what had been a white man's game. His breakthrough in "America's pastime" was also considered a milestone of black progress in the racially segregated U.S.

Years later, tennis player Billie Jean King zealously campaigned for equality for women, even as she used her skills on the court to raise the level and exposure of the women's game to a new plateau. When she beat the aging Bobby Riggs in a nationally televised "Battle of the Sexes" match in 1973, women saw it as advancing the cause of gender equality in society.

The efforts exerted by Robinson and King were different from the role that some people want Woods to play today. For one thing, they volunteered for their roles as activists. "They saw an injustice and made a decision to attack that injustice," Kane says.

Some people want Woods involved in the Augusta debate because they believe he is in the best position to induce change. He is the world's top golfer, and he is of mixed racial heritage: His mother is Thai, his father African-American. Woods himself could not...