National Champion, Heisman Trophy Winner, College Football's version of SuperMan! Love him or hate him for these titles... Tim Tebow is first and foremost a follower of Jesus! Despite the fact that he and the Gators owned my beloved Ohio State Buckeyes 3 years ago in the National Championship game, I have grown to admire Tim Tebow for his life-witness. Please enjoy the following excerpts from an article that ran on Espn.com 1/6/2009 Back in July, in a ballroom in a Birmingham, Ala., hotel during Southeastern Conference media days, a reporter asked Tim Tebow the following question: "I don't mean to sound cynical, but between winning the national championship and winning the Heisman, saving the world in the Philippines and all, did you ever, like, sneak a cigarette when you were in high school? Do you ever do anything wrong? Do you feel like everything off the field is sort of on cruise control for you?" "You know, everybody, they can look and say how easy it is. But it's definitely not that easy. The difference is 'cause not many people want to wake up at 5, go through workouts, go speak to young kids, go back, eat lunch, go to class, go to tutoring, go speak at a prison at night, come back. I mean, more people would do those things; they just don't want to sacrifice. ...So if it's cynical or whatnot, that's fine. If people don't believe it, that's fine. There's always going to be naysayers, people that are going to say it's fake. But that's fine because you can't control everybody. But I can control what I do, my attitude, how I approach the situation. So how I approach the situation is I want to do everything in my power that football gives me to influence as many people as I can for the good because that's gonna mean so much more when it's all said and done than just playing football and winning championships."
Tebow's reaction was better. His response, in part:
Tebow has quarterbacked Florida to its second BCS National Championship Game in his three years at the school. He nearly won the Heisman for a second straight season. If the Gators beat Oklahoma on Thursday and he comes back for his senior year, he has a chance to become the most decorated college football player of all time. Yet none of those are the most important statistics or milestones in Tebow's life. These are: 11 prison visits to preach Christianity to inmates (pictured); annual trips to the country of his birth, the Philippines, to assist his father's missionary work there... There are plenty of athletes who talk the pious talk. Plenty of athletes who write scripture on their eye black the way Tebow does or thank God after victories. But how many have walked the walk like Tebow -- walked it into the prisons, into the slums of the Philippines, into the hearts of people in need of a role model? How many, at age 21, have done as much work on behalf of those less fortunate?
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