I'm probably going to get football-jinxed for this, as Denver's currently down at halftime in their playoff game against the Patriots, and there's another 30 minutes of football to go, and John Fox almost never loses to the same team twice in one season, but here goes:
1 - I have complicated feelings about Tim Tebow.
2 - I sincerely want the Broncos to lose tonight, partly because of those complicated feelings, and partly not because of them.
For the record, I like and admire Tebow as a person and role model. Right now, the NFL has a bona fide served-time-in-federal-prison ex-con and an accused rapist starting at quarterback, so a guy who loves his mom and isn't ashamed of his faith doesn't trip my outrage meter. I wish that I'd had a role model like Tebow when I was a teen. By any account, he's a great guy.
But he's not such a great pro football player. Relatively, I mean. Obviously he's a better athlete than 99.99999% of the general population, and he seems to be an inspiring team leader. But, let's be honest; the reason he gets so much attention is his very public faith. If the QB of, say, the Cleveland Browns had done exactly what Tebow's done this year, his last-minute exploits would be a topic for precisely one half of one segment of "SportsCenter," and then the conventional wisdom would acknowledge that you only get to have late-game comebacks if you're down late in the game. There's a word for teams that eke out those white-knuckle finishes: luck. And luck runs out.
So, there's the faith. Anyone in the media is attracted to novelty, and a devout Christian in a league of guys who wind down at strip clubs is going to get attention, even moreso if he's a Heisman Trophy-winner with a BCS championship under his belt. And Tebow has the underdog thing going for him, too - none of the sports talking-head class thought he could hack it in the NFL. Beginning, middle, end, conflict, foreshadowing, reversals - There's a reason they call them "stories."
I get all of that. It's Jerome Bettis winning the Super Bowl in Detroit - his hometown, in case you hadn't heard - all over again. But, at least for me, the stakes are higher. This isn't just the sports media narrative of the week. It's my faith we're talking about.
Tim Tebow is a great guy, I'm sure, but his brand of Christianity isn't representative of what a lot of us believe. For some of us, the idea that God cares about the outcome of a football game is a little gross. (Read my friend Parson Carson's take.) Some of us have read Matthew 6:5, and while we get that Tebow wants to shout to the Lord and all that, we're a little uncomfortable with private faith being made public.
Why? Because Tebow seems to be one of those rare people who does, in fact, live the values he's pushing publicly... but I feel like at least some of the people fawning over him aren't the same. It's so easy to bow to your knees in the endzone (so to speak), or to buy the jersey of the guy who does, and feel like that's all you have to do. Christ didn't mean for this to be easy.
If Tim Tebow inspires you, then the best thing you could do is NOT bow in whatever your endzone might be. Instead, do the things Tebow does when "SportsCenter" isn't watching.
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