Wally Hall and the Sickness Unto Death

"[T]here is here a certainty,namely,that objectively it is absurd; and thus absurdity,held fast in the passion of inwardness, is faith."
Soren Kierkegaard, Danish Philosopher

"His ( Earl Woods, the father of Tiger Woods) expectations never exceeded his imagination."
C. Wallace Hall, Sports Editor of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette

It is often said that "Sports is a metaphor for Life." And yet rarely has this ancient bromide posed such wide philosophical implications-at least not around here- as when Wally Hall explored the dynamics of the relationship of Tiger Woods and his father in yesterday's "Like It is" column.

It is well to ponder the quality and nature of a life in which one's expectations exceed one's imagination. Perhaps such a state would produce, at worst La Nausee spoken of by Sartre or at the minimum the condition of perpetual ennui as exhibited in French intellectuals and/or teenaged girls.

Kierkegaard employed language dense and abstruse in pondering these questions. Only a master craftsman of the language like Wally Hall could bring his penetrating insight and crystalline intellect to bear on these issues while reducing same to the common and friendly parlance of the sports page in order that we common people might more easily grasp them.

And so, it is mere quibbling to suggest that the man described in Wally's piece as being the soul of probity and proportion once predicted that his son would be as important to mankind as Jesus or somesuch. It is Jesuitical hair-splitting to question whether the "Jimmy Piersall Story" is a story primarily about preseverance in the home of a cruel father (which Wally assures us Earl Woods was not) and not a troubled man's triumph over mental illness. Perhaps we are not comprehending that Wally is simply putting his own slant on Kierkegaard's interpretation of the parable of Abraham and Issac from whence the famous notion of the "leap of faith" originates. A great writer's work is often susceptible to nuanced interpretations.

No matter. Like fellow existentialists Sartre or Camus, Wally comprehends that the only valid response in the face of the absurdity of an indifferent universe is to act. In the context of the average "Like It Is" column, this translates into speculation about relationships between people he does not know and whom he did not interview. It is to make unwarranted assumptions about the motivations of men. It is , upon occasion, to just make stuff up. It is to kiss, without surcease, the ass of Frank Broyles.

Kierkegaard also said, "People understand me so poorly that they don't even understand my complaint about them not understanding me."

It is probably wrong to impose out own construct on Wally Hall's body of work. Perhaps his ouvre is the absurdity held fast in the passion of inwardness. Perhaps somewhere in his deathless prose is buried the"leap of faith" that the stuff he writes has some remote and tenuous connection to journalism.

Or like the critics of Kierkegaard maybe we just don't understand.