Tebowmania

As only a casual follower of the NFL--that is, I’ll read Peter King‘s “Monday Morning Quarterback” column in Sports Illustrated (online edition), skim through the scores, etc. every week--I’ve nevertheless somehow become fascinated by the whole “Tebowmania” thing out in Denver and, apparently, across the country. Tim Tebow, of course, is the Heisman Trophy-winning quarterback out of Florida who helped win the university two national championships, and who against “conventional wisdom” was surprisingly selected in the first round of the NFL draft in 2010 by the Denver Broncos.

None of this would be particularly interesting except that I’ve never seen a single player polarize so dramatically fans and experts and casual followers. Even people who never watch football games and don’t care one whit about the National Football League seem to have an opinion, seem passionately to want the guy to succeed--or fail--for reasons apparently having little to do with the game of football at all.

See, Tebow is an unabashed Christian. He doesn’t hide it, doesn’t downplay it, it’s just what he is, and he is comfortable enough, and sincere enough in his faith that he doesn’t apologize for it.

He is at once revered and reviled for that. The people who revere him call him “just a winner,” which, in fact, he seems to be (game last night bears, uh, witness to that); the people who revile him call him “Saint Timmy.”

I’ve never actually seen the guy play, and, in all honesty, am not enough of a football fan to be able to dissect and identify problems with his “throwing motion” or whatever. I sorta watched the Broncos-Jets game last night, or anyway the last six or so minutes of it--I say “sorta” because I don’t actually have TV; I was watching a Sports Illustrated graphic of it on my computer, which is a whole ‘nother story. When I tuned in after I got off work, the Jets had just punted, burying Denver back at their own 4- or 5-yard line. I looked at the stats real quick and saw that the Broncos had done virtually nothing on offense all evening, and at that point trailed 13-10.

Because of the Tebowmania thing, I found myself glued to the computer screen, watching the red line marking the line of scrimmage move inexorably from the right side of my monitor towards the left. It is admittedly weird watching a game that way, without seeing players or actual action or anything but a green cartoon football field with lines moving across it, yet it is fascinating at the same time, probably for the same reasons. When I was in high school and working every Sunday as a dishwasher at a local truck stop, I used to listen to Kansas City Chiefs games on the radio as I worked--watching the graphics last night was similar, but letting sight, rather than sound, trigger my imagination.

Anyway, that final drive of the Broncos just mesmerized me.

And, as I said earlier, I’m just a casual fan, but still read about the NFL. From what I’ve read about Tebow, his teammates believe in him. They will follow, however the season plays out for them as a team, because he is a leader.

His detractors, on the other hand, keep saying, “well, yeah, it has worked so far, but just wait--he’ll run into _____ or _____ or _____ and he’ll fall flat on his face.”

His fans, of course, want desperately for Tebow to succeed. His detractors want even more desperately for him to fail--so desperately, in fact, that even if he were to wind up winning a dozen Super Bowls, they would gloat that he had actually “failed” because he never managed to complete more than half of his passes, or whatever. He could become the winningest quarterback in NFL history, and STILL the detractors would be deriding him as “Saint Timmy.”

Which brings me to President Obama (believe it or not).

I’ve never seen so many people want so desperately for a president to “fail.”

And, as apparently is the case with Tim Tebow in an entirely different field, that desperation seems to stem less from Obama’s policies than it does from the fact that the president is black (“half,” the detractors remind us; “his mother is white, but he calls himself black, what’s up with that?” It would be the subject of a whole ‘nother post to respond to that one, although I have, in fact, responded to my dad on precisely that question).

Has any other president, or presidential candidate, been “forced” to produce his birth certificate?

Has any other president (aside from John Kennedy, who was Catholic) had to face inquisitions based on his religion?

Conservatives don’t like liberals, liberals don’t like conservatives, that is a given. But I have NEVER seen the level of utter hatred directed at a president as I have in the case of President Obama.

As with Tim Tebow, President Obama’s critics deride the equivalent of “arm motion” with the level of vitriol you might expect people to laser-direct at a confessed child-rapist. President Obama tries to work with the people “across the aisle,” and he is called “weak;” President Obama tries the other tack, “my way or the highway,” and he is called Nazi. Tim Tebow throws a pass and misses, he is called pathetic; Tebow runs it in from 20 yards out, people say he is “just not a pocket passer.”

What is heartening is that both Tebow and Obama seem to be riding their particular storms out with dignity, and even a bit of class.

I’m not a big football fan, I am not a Christian, and I am even less of a fan of politics--and particularly not of “partisan politics”--so maybe my perspective is skewed by the fact that, in my opinion, I don’t HAVE to have an opinion unless I so choose (and so research, etc.). From my more or less objective standpoint, though, many of the “haters” of Tebow and Obama nourish their hate ignorantly--that is, they won’t even admit the real reason they hate, even to themselves.

Interesting times, we live in.