Dear Tiger Woods,

Hello my name is Benito Mario and I would greatly appreciate it if you would pay off my student loans.  The balance is roughly 213k.  You wouldn’t just be doing me a solid, instead of ACTUALLY paying off my loans I would use the money to create a trust to pay off the student loans of one faithful reader of debtor’s prison…someone whose loans are far smaller than mine such that the trust would be renewable.  I also wrote to Pepsi Refresh and pitched a similar idea.  Do you endorse Pepsi? I guess you don’t really endorse anyone anymore. Plus it would give me something to do.  I am unemployed and I live with my mother.

I suppose you’re wondering why, besides the fact that you are a household name and on pace to be the first billionaire athlete, I have come to you with this shameless handout.  The truth is we have something very important in common. And that’s shame.

First a confession.  There are three types of people with respect to golf: those who watch golf because they like it, those who watch because of you, and those who still don’t care.  I am most accurately described as a member of the third category.  Truth is, I hate golf.  Why? Because its a representation of a world I worked my whole life to join only to have the door shut in my face.  I used to at least console myself with the fact that golf  must be exceedingly boring, but then my friend got a Wii.  If real golf is half as fun as Wii golf then I am insanely jealous.

But back to you and I.  First, I am aware you are the greatest golfer in the world.  I am also aware that I am not the smartest and therefore there is an imperfection in this analogy as it pertains to degree.  Still, both of us were prepared since birth for something.  You for golf and I for, let’s call it, the American Dream.  Our parents started us when we were young, you exceled at your golfing exercises and I at my academic ones.  At Stanford you racked up golfing accolades as I ruled the Dean’s List.

Fast forward.  You cheat on your wife.  I am told I have three months to find another job.  You cheat on your wife again.  I fail to find another job.  You cheat on your wife again.  I fail to find another job.  This continues for a time, then you drive your truck into a…tree was it? And I am let go.  You are shamed with the stigma of an adulterer and I stigma of being unemployed.  But for us its so much worse.  You had the storybook marriage and I the storybook education.  These things weren’t supposed to happen for us.  Our faces burn with shame every single day.

So please pay my student loans.  In so doing you will be providing student debt relief for as long as I can keep the trust going.