Tag Archive for 'tim-tebow'

Wow! Tebow scared me!

Published by
Steve
at September 27, 2009 in Football, Gators and Sports. 1 Comment

I found a way to watch Gator football here in China, which is a HUGE blessing for me.  College football has been one of the ‘luxuries’ from home that I’ve missed most in my 9 years living in East Asia.  The only downside – the games are all on in the middle of the night or early Saturday morning!  Oh well, I can make sacrifices!

If you are reading this, you probably already know that I am a huge Gator fan (class ’96) and also a big fan of Tim Tebow, arguably one of the best to have ever played college football!  So this morning I’m watching Florida put the finishing touches on a Kentucky Fried Blowout and then my heart stopped when I saw this;

Tebow_Motionless

I mean, I’ve seen Tebow hit people, and get hit by people so hard that it makes you start to believe some of the ‘Chuck Norris’ and ‘Superman’ quotes (aka Tebowisms) that always seem to float around Tebow.  So to see him laying motionless on that field made me go numb.  My brother, who was listening to Gator radio (via the internet), and I were discussing what might have happened – both of us stunned.  Then after coming back from commercial I got to see a visibly dazed and wobbly Tebow walk off the field.  Whew!

Tebow walks off under his own powerI felt better about things, but was still unsettled.  It was obvious that the ‘worst’ had not happened and that Tebow was not paralyzed or otherwise seriously injured, but it was also obvious that he was not right.  My brother joked that they were going to have to hide Tebow’s helmet to keep him from coming back into the game.

I didn’t come to that, in fact he was taken out on a golf cart and then eventually left the stadium in an ambulance while the game was still on-going.

Tim Tebow has been known to put a favorite quote from the Bible on his eyeblack that he wears in the games.  In this game, he wore Isaiah 40:31 which says

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

I’m not exactly sure of all the reasons that this passage is meaningful to Tebow, I can take a few guesses considering his background.  What is interesting to me is verse 30 that precedes this quote;

Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall;

I’m confident that Tebow will play again, but even if he did not, he’s the kind of person who has more going for him than just football, and he’d be okay.  He seems to have the proper perspective on what is important in life, and while everyone else might have been calling him ‘Superman’, I have a feeling he understood the truth in Isaiah 40:30!  Let’s pray for ‘renewed strength’ for Tebow in the next few weeks as he recovers.

93 Million Reasons For Tebow To Remain A Gator in ’09

Published by
Steve
at March 28, 2009 in Faith, Football and Sports. 4 Comments
Spring football practice just started at the University of Florida in Gainesville and it puts a great big smile on my face to know that Tim Tebow, one of college football’s greatest quarterbacks to ever play the game, walked out onto that practice field to complete his senior year, by-passing what certainly would have been a multi-million dollar NFL contract had he decided to go pro after last year’s season.  There is an interesting story behind Tebow’s decision to stick around for his senior year that I thought I’d share with those who may be interested.
A day or so before last year’s BCS College Football National Championship Game God impressed upon Tim Tebow that he needed to change the message he had displayed on his eye black all year long. Previously, he had a reference to Phillipians 4:13 on his eye black. He talked to four or five others about switching the message and everyone except his parents told him not to do it because they had been so successful all year with the Phillipians 4:13.
His parents, Pam and Bob Tebow, supported the change and Tebow knew it was the right thing to do. So, he made the change and played the championship game with John 3:16 on his eye black.
tim-tebow-john-3-16We all know the outcome of the game (in case you don’t, the Gators played the #1 ranked Oklahoma Sooners and they won 24–14), but the phone call that Tim Tebow received a couple of days later when he was back in Gainesville is where this story becomes interesting.
Tebow answered his cell phone and it was the P.R. guy for the UF Football team. He said, “You set a new record.” Tebow wondered what kind of record was he talking about, it’s not exactly a new thing for Tebow to break a record of one sort or another. “In the 24 hour period from the start of the BCS championship game, JOHN 3:16 was Googled…93 MILLION times! No other topic had ever been Googled that many times in a 24 hour period of time.”
The follow up story from Urban Meyer, Coach of the 2008 National Champion University Florida football team is where we get look at what kind of person Tebow is:

We all hear about the incredible family Tim is a part of. With everything going on in the world, you just know there is no way Pam and Bob Tebow can be as perfect as they are made out to be.

I am here to tell you I witnessed the most amazing conversation which is the truest testimonial to how incredibly good the Tebows truly are.

A few days after the championship game I sat at a table in the back of the Ballyhoo restaurant with Tim, Pam and Bob Tebow. It was just the four of us and I listened in amazement as Tim’s future about moving to the next level of football was decided. Unbelievably, the NFL was never once mentioned. Tim’s dad started the conversation by saying that Brett Farve spoke about his faith and no one ever listened. Here was a future Hall of Fame quarterback and no one heard his message. Tim then said…”I can think of 93 million reasons why I would want to stay in school and play my senior year at the University of Florida .”

That’s how the decision was made.

Now I know there are skeptics out there, especially those who are anti-Gators and/or anti-Christian.  Seems to me though, it’s very hard to deny that Tebow is the real deal.  It no doubt helps that I’m a Gator fan through and through and that I graduated from UF at the same ceremony as Danny Wuerffel in 1996, but I am really hoping that Tebow has an unprecedented senior year at UF!

Go Gators!

Tebowisms

Published by
Steve
at December 12, 2008 in Football and Sports. 1 Comment

Last year I wrote a post that included some “Tebowisms“, you know statements that recognize the awesomeness and total domination that exists in the Florida Gator quarterback Tim Tebow.  Here are a few;

  • “When Tim Tebow was a kid, he made his mom finish his vegetables.
  • “Tim Tebow doesn’t punch in to work. He stiff-arms.
  • “People with amnesia still remember Tim Tebow.
  • “Tim Tebow gets called for roughing the tackler.”

You may recognize some (many) of them as statements that were formerly assigned to our favorite Texas Ranger – Chuck Norris.  No offense Chuck, but there is a new sheriff in town.

Tebow

Tebow for Heisman number TWO!

Tim Tebow “Rocky Style”

Published by
Steve
at July 26, 2008 in Faith, Football and Sports. 3 Comments
Tebow is coming back, “Rocky Style.”  Cue the music – “Eye of the Tiger”
By quarterback Tim Tebow’s reckoning, his offseason training regimen stretched over three continents and included four countries.

Tebow, the 2007 Heisman Trophy winner and a member of Florida’s 2006 national title team, begins two-a-day practices with the Gators on Aug. 4. He spent his summer with his father’s ministry that took him to the Philippines, Croatia and Thailand.

“I have been a lot of places, and it’s been a bit of a whirlwind for me,” Tebow said Wednesday in Hoover, Ala., at the Southeastern Conference’s annual news media summit. “You get to do a lot of unique training, running up mountains, running up steps. I trained Rocky-style a little bit. It was pretty cool.”

“I love doing it, and it’s something I’m very passionate about,” Tebow said about helping others. “Doing those things, taking my platform as a football player and using it to be an influence and change peoples’ lives — that’s more important than football to me.”

I don’t think I could like this guy any more than I do.  I believe that even if he wasn’t a Gator, say a Seminole, a Volunteer, or a Bulldog, I’d still love him!

Heisman provides Tebow opportunities for spreading Good News

Published by
Steve
at May 7, 2008 in Faith and Football. 0 Comments

In the four months since Tebow became the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy, he has sought to spread the Good News of Jesus Christ as far as possible. Winning college football’s most coveted individual award does not seem to have taken away his focus nor his passion for serving Jesus Christ, and it has provided him with an even broader audience.

“Everybody is telling me I’ve made it,” Tebow told the inmates. “They tell me, ‘Tim, you have success and you’ve made it.’ I’ve won the Heisman Trophy, so I’ve got it made, right? One day, people are going to forget about me. One day, people are going to forget about the Heisman Trophy, the jump pass and the national championship. One day, this [championship] ring is going to rust. There are only four things that are going to last forever: God, his word, people and rewards.

ESPN Story