Tiger Woods is not really representative of your average North American ethnic minority youth. Tiger was raised in a white middle-class neighborhood. Now that I think about it your average white youth's upbringing probably wasn't much like Tiger's either. Tiger had finished his first round of golf by the age of three. Before he entered first grade he was drawing diagrams of the trajectories made by different irons.
Tiger is definitely an anomaly.
Let's examine Tiger's popularity. I do not think for a moment that Tiger is getting all the adulation and endorsement just because he is the best young golfer. It is because he is the best young golfer who happens to not be white. This is more proof that we have not reached the place that we think we are as a multicultural society. Skin color still matters, even in the integrated world of sports.