You can exhale for a few minutes, Tiger Woods. Tiki Barber has gone from former RB to current DB in a matter of seconds. The handsome, charming athlete-turned-sportscaster has ditched his pregnant wife in favor of a 23 year-old former Today Show intern. When Ginny Cha slipped a wedding ring on the finger of the New York Giant in 1999, she had no idea where it would end up. Now, after 11 years of marriage, two current kids (ages 6 and 7), and twins brewing, Tiki has gone the way of so many professional athletes. Young Traci (that’s with an ‘i’!) Lynn Johnson has been his girl-on-the-side for a while now, and is now happily being thrown to the media wolves—as long as she can still wear the big ol’ comfy #21 jersey of her former-NFL star.
The only twin Tiki will be seeing for a while.
That is, until he leaves her for someone else.
Learning of Tiki’s infidelity was a lot less fun than it should have been. The thing is, he’s a likeable guy. He was not only a great running back, but he has the uncommon ability among athletes to be able to string words together and form complete, understandable sentences. Sure, he’s opened his fat mouth to criticize Michael Strahan, Coach Tom Coughlin, and Eli Manning. And he probably shouldn’t have announced his intention to retire after the 2006-2007 NFL season when they were only 10 weeks into it. But he’s a professional athlete. Running his mouth and offending people is just par for the course (sorry, Tiger). Besides, being that critical caused a bidding war between ABC, FOX, NFL, and NBC. He makes a great commentator. And that big smile and charm has even put him in the running to replace Matt Lauer on the Today Show when Lauer retires next year.
We can expect that his books, Tiki: My Life and the Game Beyond and Tiki Barber’s Pure Hard Workout will have increased sales as a result of the scandal. Honestly, he must be in great shape to keep up with his barely-post-adolescent girlfriend. But the 6 children’s books he wrote with his brother Ronde? They might not fare so well. And as for his recurring role on the children’s show The Electric Company, well, that might not be in his future either.
It’s hard to recover from leaving-your-eight-months-pregnant-wife-for-a-child syndrome. When Tom Brady bailed on a very pregnant Bridget Moynahan in favor of a (literally) younger model, he suffered a bit of a PR nightmare. And he’s still playing.
Tiki has a few other things working against him as well. One, he is a twin to brother Ronde, and his wife is pregnant with twins. It just doesn’t read well. Also, he was very critical when his father cheated on his mother and left the family, saying, “I don’t give a [insert expletive here] that the relationship didn’t work. Not only did he abandon her, I felt like he abandoned us for a lot of our lives. I have a hard time forgiving that.” Of course, that was six years ago, when his current girlfriend was still in high school.
I hope you’re hungry, Mr. Barber, because you’re definitely eating those words now.