Tiger Woods' kindergarten teacher, Maureen Decker, is asking for public and personal apologies from the golfer "to put my mind at ease and set the record straight" about a story he's been telling for years: that he was the victim of a racially motivated attack on his first day of school, and that his teacher didn't do much about it.
Said attorney Gloria Allred: "Her contention is that the statement is completely untrue, since the incident didn't occur."
Speaking at a press conference Friday at Allred's office, Decker and Allred asserted that an anecdote repeated in a 2005 book describes an event that Decker never witnessed nor was told about. The passage in the book quotes Woods as saying, in part, "The teacher said, 'Okay, just go home.' So I had to outrun all these
kids." That after a group of older kids allegedly tied him up, spray-painted the n-word on him and threw rocks.
The teacher, now 69 and retired, said she has suffered with migraine headaches, elevated blood pressure and colitis as the story continues to pop up over time. Friends and co-workers tried, as did Decker, she said, to get through to Woods or his representatives about setting the record straight, but were unsuccessful.
"There was no way for me, as an individual, to get through to him, so that is why" she connected herself with Allred. "I just cannot continue to go on this way."
Decker first heard the account on a Barbara Walters special,
she said, and
was more recently reminded of it by her sister when an episode of
"Extra" touched on the alleged incident in the wake of Woods'
infidelities.
Decker also disputed Woods' claim that he was the only minority child
around, citing as evidence ...
