With the absence of college basketball, there has been little in the way of college sports to commentate on. Many basketball programs are landing last minute recruits, while football teams are in the midst of spring trainings and scrimmages. Couple these with the upcoming NHL and NBA playoffs, and it makes for a calm before the storm that’s great for fan anticipation but horrible for sports writing.
Out of the darkness came a story so fast and controversial that I think I have whiplash.
The University of Florida has recently unveiled three life-sized statues of Gators from years past, paid for by a smattering of recent donations to the athletics department. The most talked about has been none other than the cultural phenomenon that is Tim Tebow.
Tim Tebow has often been called “The Anointed One.” Okay fine, I’m really the only one that has ever called him that, but it’s still hard to deny that he is often talked about in ways that would suggest to many people that he is a minor god in a polytheistic religion. Tebow could do no wrong in college, gathering a cult-like fan base with a core of many devout Christians, similar to the Mormon base which follows Jimmer Fredette. His popularity was initially well deserved, as he was a great player with obvious leadership skills and dual threat capabilities. He became the first sophomore Heisman winner in the fall of 2007 football season. He was part of two national championship teams in Gainesville in 2006 and 2008. Clearly Tebow was a great college player and deserved a lot of hype, for the way he carried himself off the field and also for the way he carried the ball on the field.
However, the fervor surrounding Tebow surpassed “a lot of hype” somewhere around his junior year. He became less man and more myth, less quarterback and more God. As a devout Christian man, this is probably the last thing he ever wanted. Analysts on various networks (mostly CBS) gave him just a tad too much credit. Fans were much worse, quickly anointing Tebow as the greatest college football player to ever live. They would often be found on the internet, saying things like the following:
Or this:
"Tim Tebow is already in the conversation for ‘Greatest Ever’ even before [his senior year] starts. Layer in another [potential] national title and another Heisman, and I don't think it's close." (Editor’s Note: Tebow lost to Alabama in the SEC championship game in senior year and won the Sugar Bowl against the University of Cincinnati by a large margin. He finished 5th in the Heisman behind Ndamukong Suh, Colt McCoy, Toby Gerhart, and Heisman winner Mark Ingram. Ingram was approximately 1,000 votes ahead of Tebow.)
Tebow is arguably best known for his rushing ability (a trait that is portrayed by his U of F statue, as seen here), but he doesn’t even crack the top ten quarterback rushers of all time. Tebow totaled 2,947 yards over his collegiate career; while this number is a great stat, it’s hardly deserving of “best ever.” It certainly eclipses the average qb’s rushing total by hundreds of yards, but he comes up very short of even cracking the top 10 rushing quarterbacks. This is an even more noticeable stat line when you consider that dual threat quarterbacks are a relatively new concept- of the top ten qb rushers, eight are from the BCS era (which is only the last 20 or so years). To give you an idea of the top/notable rushing quarterbacks, tenth place is pre-BCS era Brian Mitchell (La-Lafeyette) with 3,335 yards; Josh Cribbs is fourth with 3,670 yards; Antwaan Randle El is third with 3,895 yards; Missouri’s Brad Smith is second with 4,289 yards. The all-time record is held by Pat White with 4,480 yards. Pat White vs Tim Tebow is a debate I’ve had multiple times, and which quarterback I would take varies by context (ie I would take White in the Big East/ACC/Pac-10, but probably Tebow in the Big 10/Big 12; SEC is a toss up). But that’s another debate for another time.
The truth about Tebow is that, unlike many great college athletes that carry their otherwise average teams (a la someone like an Alex Smith at Utah), Tebow had a good offensive unit around him and a stellar defense that kept him in games. Put a team like that in a topheavy but otherwise incredibly mediocre SEC, and you’re bound to see fireworks.
This unprecented fervor has reached new heights of rediculousness in Tebow’s pro career, where he scored a handful of touchdowns on an even fewer amount of starts for the subpar Denver Broncos. Tebow somehow ended up in the Madden cover vote and was beat pretty soundly by Kansas City’s Jamaal Charles. The media and many sports fans seemed utterly shocked that Jamaal Charles, one of only two runningbacks in the history of the NFL to average 5.8 yards per carry in back to back seasons, had beaten a backup quarterback in the voting. I’m not sure where the shock is coming from.
So for all of these reasons, many sports fans have been very unwilling to accept Tebow’s bronze depiction in Gainesville. Criticism floods online message boards with many skeptics wondering if Tebow was good enough to be immortalized forever on the grounds of football’s stadium. With Tebow only a year separated from his great college career, do we have the perspective necessary to justify a million-dollar statue? My answer might surprise you.
It’s a resounding yes.
Florida has made very clear that they intended to honor not only Tebow but also the other Florida Heisman winners- 1966 Steve Spurrier (current South Carolina football coach) and 1996 Danny Wuerffel. Tim’s statue received the most media and fan attention not because he is the most deserving but because he is the most recent and known by the largest amount of people across all demographics. The University of Florida wishes to pay its respects to a great player and a better person who happened to win the Heisman. That is commendable. So why are people up in arms about it? I would understand if Florida declared him the greatest player that ever lived or proclaimed that no one should ever have a statue made but Tebow. This was not the case. For once, no one is claiming that Tebow is more than he is. The big men in Gainesville have only declared that Tim Tebow is a Heisman trophy winner, and the naysayers need to understand this and get over it.
I’m fine with the trophy, and I’m fine with the sentiment. The Anointed One was a great college player and deserves the accolades, as long as no one dabs holy oil on the statues palms.
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