I first saw Tim Tebow play football in Tallahassee, Florida in November, 2006. He was a freshman backup quarterback. A huge roar came up from the Florida Gators’ section when he entered the game against rival Florida State on third down with short yardage to go.
He kept the ball, bulldozed ahead, got the first down, and the Gator fans went nuts. And so I was introduced to the Tebow experience.
My family was a long way from home that day, visiting Tallahassee from Denver. FSU was a potential college landing spot for our daughter Gracie, who was graduating high school. I thought it would be fun to be on campus for a really big football game. Little did we realize we were watching an adolescent adventure in the growth of the Tim Tebow legend.
We toured several colleges throughout Florida during that week, including Tebow’s. That stop, the University of Florida campus in Gainesville, didn’t go so well. A diesel shuttle bus, groaning through the center of campus, black smoke belched us. Minutes later a nearby door opened and two policemen ushered a kid in handcuffs out of the student union. We turned to watch; our smiling hostess ignored the distraction and continued to chirp how wonderful the campus is. A student walking past yelled out, “The food plan sucks!” I do not like that word but got the message.
Even The Alligator, the campus newspaper, didn’t help. Its bold headline story shared the good news that two suspects had been arrested and charged with multiple on-campus sexual assaults.
All campus visits are different but that one was so bad it was comical. Everything that could possibly go wrong seemed to; and yet through it all our perky campus ambassador never wavered. I guess she loved Tebow, too. She was still beaming like a searchlight when we finished our tour at Ben Hill Griffin Stadium, where the Gators play football. She wanted us to do the Gator cheer — that chomp thing — but we were not allowed to walk onto the field because we might, in her words, “damage the grass.”
We did not walk on the field, nor did we do the chomp. Gracie went to FSU.
For her first three football seasons as a Seminole — her freshman, sophomore, and junior year — each November Tebow drilled the Noles. He was a one-man gang, lifting his teammates to a level of performance those kids had no idea they were good enough to play. He was a leader, a winner, and one heck of a college football player.
No one was happier to see him graduate and leave UF than FSU’s Seminole family. We couldn’t have beaten that guy in thirty years. We knew it, he knew it, and so did Gator nation.
It never dawned on me that Tebow would begin his pro football career in Denver. Josh McDaniels, a cocky and immature young assistant coach hired from the New England Patriots to be a head coach wunderkind, traded up and drafted Tebow late in the first round. McDaniels was still in the honeymoon phase of his job; we didn’t yet realize he couldn’t coach peewee football, much less the NFL, or that his people skills were like nunchucks in the hands of a nervous klutz learning martial arts.
With Tebow arrived Tebowmania. Full blown. While Gracie was in college, I saw it from a distance. But when Tim showed up at Bronco headquarters four miles away, the difference was like watching footage of the Japanese tsunami on YouTube versus nearly drowning in it, dog paddling for your life, trying to survive.
Nothing I have witnessed in three decades connected to professional sports comes anywhere close to Tebowmania. It is a cyclops: a towering, powerful, mythical beast. Perhaps it’s the times, or maybe the pervasive blanketing of instant electronic media. Tebowmania stokes emotional reactions caused by the oddest of things — one nice guy who simply does what he is asked to do — show up and be, well, Tebow.
It took less than two years in the NFL for Tebow to become an established national celebrity. He is a one-name athlete like Jordan, Pele, and Ali. He is pro football’s first one-name star, which raises the question, “How in the world can a backup quarterback struggling to prove himself in a league of different-than-him personalities and talents explode into a social phenomenon?”
Five reasons:
- Uniqueness.
- Race.
- Religion.
- America’s instant-celebrity culture.
- Jealousy.
Uniqueness. New and different personalities or products pique the interest of the masses. Rehashes don’t, but novelty does. Examples include Lady Gaga, Crocs, and Linsansity (Asian basketballer Jeremy Lin of the New York Knicks). Pet rocks, Baby on Board window triangles, Mark “The Bird” Fidrych, and Fernandomania. You get the picture.
Tebow is a big, strong, handsome, lefthanded bulldozer playing football’s most glamorous position differently than others. He knows how to win but not drop back or throw. His unique skill set and approach make him ideal for debate. He fits no previous mold.
Race. Tebow is about as white as a white guy can be. The NFL is 78 percent black. Twenty-one percent of players on active NFL rosters have arrest records. Coming out of college, Michael Vick was the closest predecessor to Tebow’s skill set. Park Vick’s dog problems; Vick had glowing expectations and skill-set admiration coming into the NFL but was never given a scholarship of celebrity worship.
Religion. Twenty-two years ago the third pick in the 1990 NBA draft was LSU shooting guard Chris Jackson. Barely six-feet tall and afflicted by Tourette syndrome, Jackson was a scorer. He could shoot it like a video game. He scored 48 points in his third game. Two games later he rained down 53. Jackson was the first freshman to be named SEC Player of the Year. He was also a first-team All-American.
Turning pro, Jackson was drafted by the Denver Nuggets and soon changed his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf. In 1996, then with the Sacramento Kings, he refused to stand for the National Anthem. He saw the ritual as a conflict with his deep-seated religious beliefs.
Three decades after Cassius Clay confused and angered white America by becoming Muhammad Ali (en route to boxing his way to the mountaintop of global athletics), Americans still did not understand Islam, nor care enough about its practitioners or principles to even ask why Abdul-Rauf was conflicted. Instead they condemned him. He was immediately suspended, then reinstated, and then flattened beneath a public relations dog-pile. One of the world’s greatest pure shooters was drummed out of the NBA in his late-twenties.
Mainstream America, of course, is not Muslim. We are a Christian nation. Prior to 1990, Christianity represented a very big majority of religious market share. A full 87 percent of American adults identified themselves as Christians of some degree.
Over the last two decades the country has experienced a major change. For many reasons millions began to disaffiliate themselves from Christianity (and other organized religions). Four years ago the Christian percentage had slid from 87 to 76 percent — a rather precipitous fall. While updated census data is unavailable, the religion’s popularity is believed to still be declining.
Tebow, then, represents to Christians a hero through reaffirmation. It is this reaffirmation identification that creates debate among football fans. Religious conviction — its strength or lack thereof — varies widely by degree, from devout to casual. Everyone — from the guy who goes to church because he must to the over-the-top lunatic fringe — watches Tebow’s expressive religious nature and, depending upon his or her prescription lens of conviction, sees it clearly or blurry.
Globally the Tebow effect would not happen. A big deal here, it wouldn’t be on other continents. Around the world, Christianity has two billion followers — a 32 percent share — but that share is dropping. Islam has 1.6 billion followers (22 percent) and is growing. Hinduism is third (950 million, 13 percent), and “no affiliation” is fourth — 775 million people representing 12 percent (but dropping). Those three added together are 50 percent larger than Christianity.
Tebow’s personality and performance generate a lot of positive discussion in the U.S.A. because his religion still constitutes the majority view. Minority religion (such as Islam) are dismissed as radical. Ali and Abdul-Rauf proved this to us decades apart.
Would Tebow be as popular here in American if he were not Christian? I do not think so.
America’s instant-celebrity culture. Tebow is Madison Avenue’s dream: telegenic, polite, well-spoken, charismatic, ultra-positive, and always happy. He is also young — a citizen of Generation Y — and Gen Y is the first generation that has been raised in an organically wired world. Digital tools, communication options, networking — all are natural tools.
As a result Tebow benefits from being a poster child for his sporting generation. Timing is everything, right? Tim’s is the perfect storm of personality, platform, and technology. His personality drives the platform, which technology immediately distributes.
Jealousy. Tebow is a role-model. Millions want to see him fall because no one is perfect and once the veneer is stripped away, media-made role models tend to crumble. History says that once the media termites bore deep enough, any man’s facade can be infested with negative contradictions. Tiger Woods, of course, is the all-time champion but legions of others have fallen before. If you don’t believe me, ask Pete Rose.
Tebow is the true All-American boy, a seemingly fictional character like Chip Hilton. But the jealousy comes in because Tebow truly exists. Imperfect people aren’t like him and know it. They aren’t admired like him and know it. They’d like to be but aren’t. They resent his success and popularity. Ergo jealousy.
People with damaged character want Tebow to fail, not succeed, and will not cheer him on. They hope he succumbs to temptation and lapses in judgment, just as they have.
The NFL, Tebow’s place of employment, hypes to the masses a growing multi-billion dollar business built around a very imperfect work force. The average franchise is worth a billion dollars and the league generated over $8.5 billion last year alone. When that kind of money is at stake, integrity is for rent. A perfect man skipping safely through an imperfect neighborhood is bound to spout jealousy.
When a man has integrity in spades, as Tebow does, he stands out like a tall poppy. And it is the tall poppy that is cut down first.
After six years of watching this guy, first from a distance and then up close, he seems an easy guy to like and a hard guy not to root for. His arc of destiny seems poised to soar way beyond football.
Which way and to what degree? Who knows. Whatever he does will be fun to watch.
That’s my take on Tebowmania. I’m curious to hear yours.