The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
Posted on 11/19/2011 2:39:46 AM PST by Kaslin
I think we witnessed a miracle last night.
I'm not talking about Tim Tebow's incredible 95-yard game-winning drive. I'm talking about the fact that Tebow got at least two NFL Network football analysts and stellar former players—Deion Sanders and Michael Irvin—discussing God on a post-game football show. Overall, the analysts were flabbergasted by what they saw in Tebow's performance. They couldn't explain it.
But they could sense something was different. I've watched football religiously growing up. I've never seen a cluster of NFL analysts, most of them former players and coaches, so star-struck as when Tebow came on set last night after the game. After he left the set, Rich Eisen was at a loss for words.
To stats and football experts, Tebow's 4-1 record seems so complicated. But it's really very simple.
People enter life with different gifts. Some get Heidi Klum knockout looks. Some get Steve Jobs' innovative genius.
Passion and faith are gifts. So are work ethic and the ability to inspire people. And Tebow has a superhuman capacity for all four.
You will never completely understand Tebow, how he wins, and how he plays the game, by looking at statistics in the NFL. It's a passing league, and Tebow isn't a passer. It's a league where a quarterback should be able to scramble, but not run (ask Michael Vick). It's a league where a guy who only completes two passes in a game shouldn't win that game. I know the game; I know it's foolish to think a player like the one described above will succeed. Initially, it defied common sense.
But now, several analysts are the ones defying common sense. Stop wasting energy trying to explain Tebow in only the way described above. Stop being so unoriginal. Human beings, in addition to physical ability, have a mental and spiritual component. Way too often, that third component is underdeveloped. But that doesn't mean it doesn't exist. When experts do talk about it in the NFL, they often call it 'character.' Kurt Warner, in fact, told Townhall Magazine earlier this year that character isn't weighed heavily enough in the NFL.
Tebow, of course, takes that a step further. People get worked up because Tebow prays and attributes his success to a higher power. Tebow is simply living his life. He goes about his business. He's the kind of guy, he said yesterday, who gets more excited about a hospital he's building over in the Philippines than glory on the football field.
When people ask him why he wins, he'll say faith and that his teammates believe in each other. Yet somehow Americans – the country that made sending a man to the moon possible, the country where athletes have so many superstitions that it's downright hilarious– are too cynical to believe that is possible. So quick to praise an unproven dream team quarterbacked by Michael Vick, so surprised when a hardworking guy who's never let anyone down on a big stage keeps doing what he's done his whole career.
Marshall Faulk—a truly great running back—said last night that he can't analyze Tebow's faith, only what happens on the football field. He had a good point, but he's missing something: Tebow's game intertwines them. If you want to analyze his game, you need to understand his motivation and how powerful that faith can be. It doesn't mean you have to adhere to his faith; but it's silly to pretend that it's not a factor in his game.
"You are the Professor Tebow that's giving us all a lesson," Michael Irvin told Tebow last night. "We put so much on skill, not enough on will. When I am watching you, you are willing this team to victory."
Tebow is moving the mountains analysts put in his way. He is growing legends of mustard seeds. To fans and analysts in this situation, I say engage in a bit of well-placed wonder. We'd all be better off for it. Unless, of course, you're a Jets player or coach. Then I'd say learn a lesson.
Before the game, The New York Post ran a picture of Tebow looking to the heavens with an admittedly clever headline saying, "God help him."
Well, He did.
Hey Darkwolf377,
Compared to the heathen residing in our house in DC you are a saint.
Tebow knows right from wrong.
McQueary does not. Paterno should but does not. The ex-president of the university, having taught sociology for years, pretends that there is no good or evil.
Perhaps Tebow would be the same person if he had a different upbringing, or if he didn't become a Christian.
No, I can say that Tebow is who he is because of his personal faith in Jesus Christ and his voluntary choice to be a Christian every day.
The only scandal in the Tebow world is the secular media coverage of his life looking for any imperfection.
While imperfections that the media should find sit lonely, since most modern media no longer recognized good or evil.
The secular humanistic “-ologists” would be good for a chuckle, if their trail wasn’t so tragic. How many scientists study the anthropology of the very scientific pursuit itself? How many can put their own selves in perspective?
Somebody confessing honestly that he is not a believer is often a lot nearer to agreement with God than someone who isn’t a believer pretending he is one. That Saddleback “testimony” of Obama was such a farce, and a forced farce at that. It would have been better for him to say yes, he has Islamic spiritual sympathies and let it go at that.
Elitists have crippled themselves and our Nation in acheivement and well being by debasing the inspriational truth, thought and actions of man connected to the Holy Spirit.
This intangible Grace is what blessed our Nation as exceptional before the current crop of one materialistic elitists came along. There is real power for success and love (or goodness) through the gifts of a man who is in touch with the Holy Spirit through his soul. This is what Alexis de Tocqueville witnessed in this country.
We are fortunate to be blessed with you as our “resident heathen.” :)
Red Sanders was perhaps the most underhanded coach to ever lead a football team in the Pacific Coast Conference. His cheating at UCLA was notorious, but he was a winner. Thus, despite the penalties UCLA was given he managed to hold on to his job. After all, then and now, at UCLA winning is everything (and it will be looking for a new coach at year’s end).
Thanks for posting this! It’s all I could think about on Thursday night!
ESPN “analysts” are anxiously awaiting the day the Broncos lose 2 or 3 in a row. They can’t wait to rag on Tebow.
Well, screw them!
Go Broncos! Tebow!
Michael Irvin told Tebow last night. “We put so much on skill, not enough on will. When I am watching you, you are willing this team to victory.”
Probably not a coincidence that Tebow plays for John Elway. Elway had great QB skills but it was his will that earned him Championships, and his ability to transfer that “will to win” in his teammates.
The Current FReepathon Pays For The Current Quarters Expenses?
I am a die hard Broncos fan and Thurs night I was in shock. The last drive I kept telling my wife that this kid is going to be a great qb and something is happening. If its not gods hands that guide him it is pure will and determination to win. He has his team believing in him. I loved seeing John Elway Stand up and applaud him when he made the final touch down. I truly Believe in the Tee! God Bless him and I believe he is.. It reminds me of the Movie “Oh god Book 2” when God ask the little girl to spread the word of Gods existance and every one clowned her and tried to put her in a mental institution. I believe Tim is that girl, and like in the movie he is making people talk about god and Jesus and maybe just maybe he makes them have a little more faith.
Maybe this is the reason Tim is religious:
“Born on August 14th of 1987 in the Philippines, Tim was officially named Timothy Richard Tebow after Pam and Bob gave birth to their 5th child while on a Christian missionary. Timmy is considered a miracle baby by many after surviving through a pathological amoeba infection that Pam suffered while pregnant with him. Nearly every doctor recommended abortion, but Pam and Bob chose life”
So it’s even older than Lombardi. Again, what generation of kids were brought up differently - WWI or WWII? Seems to me that the mythoogical non-importance of winning never existed outside of non-athletic types and liberals.
I'd start every year by gathering the team and challenging them to get better daily, to give their full effort all the time, to learn how to stretch themselves to be their best. I told them if they did that in practice, and did that in the games, they would always be winners, even if the score didn't show that at the end of the game.
It's a funny thing, the teams that followed those precepts were the ones that always ended doing very well in the win column.
Tebow embodies the right attitude, he was amazing in the press conference. He may never be a great NFL quarterback, but he is already a great man.
Nice dodge for not having the facts aside,and your weak repetition of a line that wasn't funy the first time, what, exactly, would be wrong with the generation of kids brought up in the WWI or WWI eras?
Also, you seem to have missed the very obvious context in which Lombardi made that comment, which is in response to ethos which have always been with us. Go look it up, if that's not too hard.
What you're pushing is a thuggish, un-American attitude which is the essence of the illegal alien issue in this country--it doesn't matter that they play the game the way the rules say, it's all about WINNING, right?
I admit your attitude prevails in those parents who call names at opposing teams at Little League games, but it's funny, folks like you never seem to be the ones to bring up actual championships. (X-Box doesn't count.) Whenever I've seen or met parents of winning athletes, they talk about hard work and ethics, not just winning at all costs.
I feel sorry for kids brought up like you, but fortunately, you make up the vocal minority, your weak 'liberal' smear typical of truly weak people who hide their essential weakness behind sports jerseys.
Please see post #35 for how a real winner thinks about winning.
Yes, it is refreshing to know that there are other verses in the Bible besides John 3:16. When Tebow was at Florida, he changed the debate. As I would listen to those SEC football talk shows on Sunday afternoon, callers would call in to discuss what scripture Tebow happened to have had sketched in his eye-black sticker in the previous game. Those scriptures reached tens of thousands over that radio, all because Tebow was willing to allow God to use him for the Kingdom. God bless him.
For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.
I Corinthians 1:18
“While imperfections that the media should find sit lonely, since most modern media no longer recognized good or evil.”
Very well said.
It has fascinated and amused me how both non-Christians and even some Christians will work hard to be successful and push their children to be the very best they can be, but then bristle at the idea that God wants them to be successful. Where do you think the desire to win came from?
Your heavenly Father is more eager for your success than you are! And I guarantee that Godly success does more to spread the Kingdom than any failure ever could. I don’t know that much about Tebow. But because of him a lot of people are talking about my Savior. And that is wonderful.
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