NEW YORK: Tiger Woods was different, or so he seemed, with his unmatchable talent and carefully burnished image. Unlike some pro athletes, he had welcomed being a role model. He was, it turns out, too good to be true, and his fall from grace calls into question the very idea of sports hero worship.

"No one has approached this level of perfection on and off the playing surface, maybe ever, without a single blot or tarnish," said Dave Czesniuk, director of operations for Northeastern University's Center for the Study of Sport in Society.

"The real story here is the meeting of expectations with reality," Czesniuk said. "The guy's a human being and we forget that."