With Tiger Woods, Ethnicity Is in the Eye of the Beholder

Tiger Woods, the three-time national junior golf champion from Cypress who will play for Stanford next year, is often touted as being potentially the next great black professional golfer, but Woods told San Jose Mercury News columnist Dan Hruby that his race is often misunderstood.

“Actually, I’m three-fourths Asian,” Woods said. “I’m mostly Thai and a little Chinese. And I’m one-fourth black. When I go to Thailand, they call me a Thai. In this country, I’m called a black. So it is a little confusing.”

Tiger’s father, Earl, spelled it out more specifically:

“Tiger is really one-half Thai, one-quarter Chinese, one-eighth white, one-sixteenth Shawnee American Indian and one-sixteenth black.”

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Trivia time: Winston Cup stock cars will race at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway for the first time on Aug. 6. Have Indy cars ever raced at Daytona International Speedway?

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Back to School: World Cup organizers have put on a tremendous show for the world’s soccer fans, but they sure don’t know their geography.

In the World Cup Media Guide, and in ticket advertisements, the Rose Bowl is listed as being in Los Angeles. In the media guide, a map of the Rose Bowl area--including famous Colorado Blvd., where the New Year’s Day parade is held--mentioned only Los Angeles.

Wonder what the citizens of Pasadena, whose taxes help support the Rose Bowl, think of the slight?

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Team comes first: Playing lacrosse is a way of tearing down barriers for the Kanesatake Eagles of Quebec.

At home in Kanesatake, the Mohawk players live an uneasy coexistence with non-native neighbors still bitter over the 1990 Oka crisis in which armed Indians faced off against provincial police and the army.

But in the lacrosse box, 17 of the Eagles’ 36 players are non-native.

“We leave the politics at the door,” Coach Barry Bonspille said. “Here, we’re not Mohawk, we’re not French--we’re Eagles.”

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Shared wealth: Mayor Stephen Goldsmith of Indianapolis has made good on his bet on the Indiana Pacers in the NBA Eastern Conference championship series against the New York Knicks.

Goldsmith sent 50 pounds of Indiana popcorn to New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani; it will be donated to the New York Children’s Aid Society. And even though he won the bet, Giuliani sent 250 of Nathan’s Famous Hot Dogs to Goldsmith for donation to charity.

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Trivia answer: Yes. On April 4, 1959. Jim Rathmann won a 100-mile race, averaging 170.261 m.p.h.

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Quotebook: Lou Piniella, Seattle Mariner manager, on Ken Griffey Jr.: “I never saw Babe Ruth hit, but we’re possibly seeing another one in the making.”