I just recently moved from Denver after having lived there 16 years and I'm a Broncos fan. I'm a Seattle Seahawks fan too and have been since I was a kid but the Broncos became my home town team. I was a season ticket holder for 7 or 8 of those years and during that time they won 2 Superbowls and moved into a new stadium. I was at the game when Jason Elam kicked a 63 yard field goal to tie Tom Dempsey and I was at the game when Terrell Davis broke 2,000 yards (against my beloved Seahawks no less). I watched John Elway throw numerous TDs and I watched the famous playoff collapse against Jacksonville that very likely could have been the first of 3 Superbowl's in a row instead of 2.
So you would think given all that and being a Christian I would have been excited when the Broncos drafted Tim Tebow in the first round. It was great on the one hand to have a person with such great character on the team who shares my own worldview but on the other hand I felt like they drafted him way too high. By this time if you don't know who Tim Tebow is well I'm not sure what rock you might have been living under. You can easily Google him and look at his great college career.
Tebow might just be the most well known player in the NFL or at least one of the most well known. People either love him or hate him. The hate part I don't get and probably never will. He doesn't get into trouble and never seems to put himself first. I think that might be why people some people don't like him. He's got it all, money, fame, and could have most anything, but yet he doesn't take credit for any of it, ever.
I watched the interview with him last night after the game and the commentators wanted to bring him down in a way I don't think I've ever seen with other players. He just lead the Broncos to another come from behind win in the last few minutes that was amazing to watch. He hadn't had a great game but just like the previous games he kicked it into another gear near the end and put the team on his shoulders and scored the winning TD with less than a minute remaining. But the interviewers were asking him questions like "When you miss your receivers and they are are wide open what do they say to you when you come back to the huddle?" That's a paraphrase but those were the tone of the questions. It was like "Yeah, you won but you weren't perfect, why are you so bad?" When it's clear that Tebow's teammates respect him and they follow him.
The entire time these insulting and ridiculous questions were being thrown at him, he of course pointed to Jesus at the start of the interview, but he just kept heaping praise on his teammates and coaches giving them credit. It doesn't come across in an insincere or cliche way either, it's not false humility like so many athletes spew out. Here he was engineering one of the greatest, most exciting wins in Broncos history and they ask how excited he was about it. He says he was way more excited about announcing earlier in the day that he was partnering with another group to build a children's hospital in the Philippines. The thing is you believe him when he says that.
He also said he's been given a platform to influence others and have an impact on other people's lives and football is just the vehicle to accomplish that. There's a human being who has it right. Win or lose I have little doubt that his focus will still be the same. I'm a Tebow fan no matter what he does because he's doing life the right way. I'm not putting him on a pedestal, because he's not perfect. But his approach is right and his heart is in the right spot. As Christians we should do everything that God has given us to influence and impact those around us in a positive way to glorify God just like Tebow. I'm going to look to Tebow's example and do a better job in those areas in my own life to help those around me and not only point them to truth but to just care about them. Tebow being drafted 25th overall in the first round seems like a steal now. Not for the wins and losses but on his character alone. Tebow has put himself second I want to do the same.
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