Tim Tebow and the Denver Broncos beat my Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday. It was a great performance by a young man I have a lot of admiration for. I read his autobiography several weeks ago and he is undoubtedly someone who has God-given athletic talents. However, he also is someone who has worked incredibly hard and is a true competitor. He has also proven that he is a winner. Florida won two national championships in his four years at the school. He now has gotten Denver into the playoffs for the first time since 2005 and led them to a first round win.
He is a young man who has also not been afraid to fully embrace and demonstrate his Christianity in a very public manner. He wore eye black with Bible messages when he was in college. The photo above is from the 2009 BCS Championship game. The NFL bans eye-black messages but I found it pretty interesting to see some of the statistics from yesterday's game. It seems that Tim still got his message across even without the eye black. Yahoo Sports summarizes Sunday's Tebow Time.
Tebow's passing yards 316 yards
Tebow's average yard per completed pass 31.6 yards
Final quarter tv rating for the game 31.6
After the Broncos won something like 5 of 6 games after Tebow was named starting QB, I found myself 1) incredulous, and 2) eager to watch (or a least hear or read about) each week's Broncos game. I even made it a point to get to a sports bar to watch the Broncos-Patriots game. It's a great story no doubt - for me, just the remarkable turnaround for the Broncos under a new QB. I'm really impressed at how one very young guy can inspire his peers and elders (even jaded professional sports veterans), on both the offense and defense!
ReplyDeleteAs for the controversy about his religious devotion, it's understandable - there's what's been done: wearing a big gold cross around your neck, kneeling in the end zone or pointing to the sky after a touchdown, and crediting God for everything from the athlete's natural talent, to the team's victory, even to the bounce of the ball during an onside kick, and then there's Tebow. I think Tebow's frequent mention of his "Lord and Savior Jesus Christ" is what bothers people. I think people take it as proselytizing, and Americans don't like being told who or how to worship (you of anyone knows about that - think back about 300+ years).
What's surprising is your mention and encouragement to "believe" the numbers. Numerology is as far from science as paranormal research and astrology! Why do people say "When it rains, it pours," or "Bad luck comes in threes?" Because the odds of bad things happening at even intervals throughout the year are miniscule compared to the odds of those events clustering. Same with playing thousands of NFL games - what we should worry about is if there was NEVER a game where a QB threw the same number of yards as his yds/pass, which number could also be construed as a sign, or Bible passage, or, well, use your imagination. Numerology is akin to cloud gazing.
I am a natural skeptic, but sometimes get caught up in a frenzy (like Tebowmania), so I need reminding every now and then to step back and check the evidence, experiment, and check again.
"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool."
- Richard Feynman
(I'm sure we'll continue this discussion before or after our logo review!)