I wouldn’t be saying this if I hadn’t said it before, because nobody has a right to 20-20 hindsight. Tim Tebow should have passed, ironic pun intended, on the National Football League.
At the University of Florida, Tebow was a Heisman Trophy winner. He was also an academic All-American. And while he looked like a stud, he was a clean-living exemplar. He was what any parent or coed would want, which is not a common parlay. He was that rare anointed one who would surely leverage name recognition into societal good. Serious societal good. As in foundations and public service. The sooner, the better.
But where do you go from Gainesville with all that upside to do good? In this marketplace, it turns out, even if you’re unlike anyone else who’s ever played the game, you still head for the next level of football, the NFL. Even if you’re a consensus anti-prototype NFL quarterback with the sort of mechanics, release and accuracy issues that even Jon Gruden can’t correct.
So instead of bowing out on top with that monster Sugar Bowl game against Cincinnati, Tebow headed to the NFL with every hot-shot college player hoping to cash in. But instead of long-shot success, he turned all those talking-head doubters into sneering seers by failing on the field. He was recently released by the New York Jets, a team that is certifiably quarterback-challenged.
The only place he didn’t fail was in early marketing. That’s because he put himself into an enterprise where players are shilled as show-biz commodities. He cheapened himself with an underwear ad. He trivialized his religious convictions by trademarking “Tebowing.” He quoted scripture as if the Almighty’s priorities included success during the “two-minute drill.”
Tim Tebow was a special person with a special calling. He still is, although we really didn’t need to see this tarnished side. But the alternative still beckons.