when did this happen to us?

I, not unlike many, have been fascinated by the mayhem and the ceaseless barrage of stories surrounding the sordid life of one Tiger Woods over the past week and a half. But the whole thing also makes me feel sick and sort of like I'm a perverted voyeur.

I've followed the thing with my hands over my eyes, peaking through a crack in my fingers. From the bizarre initial story, where he smashed into a fire hydrant and tree in his gated community going no faster than 20 mph, whereupon his wife, acting heroically we were told, smashed the rear window of his SUV to save him, to the new revelations of his "transgressions", I've watched with a giggle.

We all know about all this because we've all been watching. Turns out Tiger has quite a voracious appetite for the flesh (I never thought he liked playing Skins that much, really) with more than four ladies going public with stories of romance with the world's greatest golfer (including one chick who said Tiger brought her back to his place in Florida one night after a tournament, where the two had 'unprotected' sex. Do we really need to know that Tiger went Raw Daddy? Here I always thought he put a head-cover on his driver.).

Also, it appears his wife, in fact, was not smashing his window in a bid to save Tiger, but most likely she was chasing him or at least smashed up the ride in anger. Now there are suspicions Tiger was drunk when he was driving (I KNEW IT!).

The whole story has not only blemished his reputation (although I thought he was kind of douchey in the first place) and has spurred thousands of jokes, but has once again made me sad at what now constitutes sports news.

(Before I continue, I have to write that when I spoke to my dad on the phone last night, he recited a good half dozen jokes off the top of his head:

"What's the difference between a car and a golf ball?

Tiger Woods can drive a golf ball 300 yards."

"Why did Tiger hit a fire hydrant AND a tree?

Because he didn't know whether to choose a wood or an iron."

Ahhh... Good stuff.)

While I won't say I haven't enjoyed watching this story play out (because I have), I do believe we are falling further and further into a sick kind of depravity in our mainstream sports fandom.

Let me elaborate.

It's hard to argue when the life of the world's most successful, popular and richest athlete crumbles in front of our eyes, it doesn't constitute a sports story. But at what point does it stop becoming a sports story? Today, his mother in law was taken to the hospital. Why is that leading ESPN.com? I suppose we are all still in shock, since Tiger had concealed his personal life and his personality better than anyone since MJ. All we know about him is his chilly and nearly assholish competitiveness on the links, he has a temper with photographers and fans, and he had a super-devoted father, who shoved a golf club in his son's hands before his first steps.

But the non-stop, CNN-Situation-Room-Style coverage given this story, along with the daily stream of headlines about other athlete screw-ups makes me take pause. The other major story in the sports sphere on the day Woods sliced his SUV into the trees was Ron Artest's admission that he used to drink alcohol before NBA games (and during halftime, even). Again, this is a story, but it was front page news on sports websites.

At some point in my life, the game being played on the field, court or ice surface began to play second fiddle to what athletes were doing when they weren't competing. I honestly can say I barely remember opening up the Edmonton Journal Sports page when I was a kid and reading a story about an athlete getting a speeding ticket or a DUI. I only remember events like Mike Tyson going to prison for rape and Michael Irvin getting busted with hookers and blow in a hotel room. That's pretty much it.

Nowadays, the sports page is filled with the personal and off-the-field activities of athletes. And the internet is worse. Seriously, go have a look at any mainstream sports website and I guarantee there are at least two or three stories about DUIs, a controversial quote or some kind of pending charge against an athlete.

In the past week or so, I've seen stories about Adrian Peterson -- and later that week, a teammate of his -- getting nabbed for a speeding ticket. David Stern tells a reporter that he believes women will play in the NBA in 10 years, and LeBron James is asked the question, where he respectfully disagrees. ESPN.com puts that on their front page in the headlines box, a tiny little article trolling for backlash and baiting readers to blow the issue up. Andy Murray's girlfriend tells the media she can't deal with her husband's 7-hour-a-day computer RPG habit. And at least once a day, someone in the sports world says something dumb, or sexist, or racist, or controversial, and then the next day, there is a story about how incredulous an affected group is, and the next day there is an apology. What does this have to do with sport? We don't elect these people to play professionally. Sure, they sort of represent us to a degree, because we may cheer for them or because we idolize them and because we pay tickets to see them, but do they really deserve that kind of scrutiny and should their personal mistakes really be made that public? Many players are far from academics and scores come from difficult backgrounds, and are under pressure every night in front of millions of people. They are bound to make mistakes.

It's a beef I have with sports media now. While I'm sure all these quotes are entertaining and these extracurricular blunders are definitely not to be forgiven, I do wish more sports writing focused on the games and the dynamic in the locker room. I mean, that's what a sportswriter should give the reader, because they have access to that place and we don't. Anyone can write up a story about an athlete blowing over 0.08. It's lazy. I have found a few places I'll stop by now to read up on my favorite teams, but it seems you really have to search now and nothing you find on television or any of the mainstream sports websites is of any interest to the actual sports fan.

I want to read about interactions between teammates on my teams, or the dynamics in the dressing room of a winning team or losing team, and what makes a leader. I want to know what makes the special players special, and the characteristics that make some transcendent.

Everything that's written now is about building up an athlete or destroying them. Often, it has little to do with how they perform during gametime.

And if it's not personal crises, it's player transactions and rumours about players coming and going which generate more ink than what the players do on the court. Now this may have to do with the rise of fantasy sports, and everyone considering themselves a GM, but again, it overshadows what happens on the court.

For instance, while LeBron James, a player who has all the skill and physical gifts to be the greatest basketball player of all time, is reaching his prime, all the media has talked about for the past three years is where he'll end up when his contract expires in 2010. Whether it will be New York or Miami or Chicago or L.A. Will he eschew Cleveland to play in a bigger market? He is asked the question in every city he visits, every comment -- often taken out of context -- on his future results in a front page headline on ESPN.com, and it has led to thousands of columns and frothy talk radio discussions. But lost in all of this talk is James' present-day play, where he's doing things only paralleled by a few players in history. It's like nothing from the present is allowed to be spoken about, which means anything happening in the present is lost as all that matters is establishing the player's legacy or trying to figure out who the next LeBron James will be.

Once in PoliSci class in University, during a discussion about sports, some dude in the back of the room called them a distraction, saying they kept people focused on things that ultimately didn't matter and away from what was really important and happening in the world.

That made me very angry, as a lifelong sports fan. I find inspiration in performances like Steve Yzerman's 2002 Stanley Cup Playoffs, where he led the Wings to a Cup on one leg. I love how sports can bring people together like nothing else, whether it's a playoff run or World Cup victory. I see how lessons taken from team sports about sacrifice, playing a role, selflessness, hard-work, dedication and co-operation are transferrable to life. And fuck it, I love watching Dywane Wade soar into the air and throw a dunk down on a helpless opponent, or Jonathan Toews making two defensemen look foolish before tucking the puck behind the goalie, and watching the most athletic, co-ordinated and talented beings on this planet do things that were previous unimaginable.

But with the way these off-the-court activities are starting to take precedent and the way I've been distracted by Tiger Woods' self-destruction, the more I'm beginning to believe that dude in my PoliSci class was right.