Tim Tebow

The other day, I received an email from a friend of mine.  The subject of the email was, “Pam’s Story.”  It looked like any other forwarded email, and usually I just delete them.  I have no idea what prompted me to open this one, but, I did.  Let me just share the first four paragraphs of this email with you.

Pam knows the pain of considering abortion.  More than 24 years ago, she and her husband Bob were serving as missionaries to the Phillipines and praying for a fifth child.  Pam contracted amoebic dysentery, an infection of the intestine caused by a parasite found in contaminated food or drink.  She went into a coma and was treated with strong antibiotics before they discovered she was pregnant.

Doctors urged her to abort the baby for her own safety and told her that the medicines had caused irreversible damage to her baby.  She refused the abortion and cited her Christian faith as the reason for her hope that her son would be born without the devastating disabilities physicians predicted.  Pam said the doctors didn’t think of it as a life, they thought of it as a mass of fetal tissue.

While pregnant, Pam nearly lost their baby four times but refused to consider abortion.  She recalled making a pledge to God with her husband:  If you will give us a son, we’ll name him Timothy and we’ll dedicate him to you and trust you to call him as a preacher of the gospel.

Pam ultimately spent the last two months of her pregnancy in bed and eventually gave birth to a healthy baby boy August 14, 1987.  Pam’s youngest son is indeed a preacher.  He preaches in prisons, makes hospital visits, and serves with his father’s ministry in the Phillipines.  He also plays football.  Pam’s son is Tim Tebow.

So, after reading the email, I thought to myself that it was a pretty cool story.  I doubted that it was the truth, but I thought it was pretty good, regardless.  So, today, I decided to research it a little.  Sure enough, it’s true.

As I’ve said many times, I’m neither a Tebow lover, nor a Tebow hater.  I’m impressed with the things he did in Florida, and how he managed to lead the Broncos to quite a few wins, and ultimately to the playoffs.  I’m not impressed with his quarterback mechanics, we’ll see how he improves over time.  I don’t know if you’ve seen any of the ESPN stories about him, but he seems like a pretty genuinely nice guy.  See the video here.

So, Tim Tebow was home schooled and there was a minor controversy about him playing high school football.  Florida had a law that home schooled students could play for the school in whatever district they played in.  Several states have followed suit, in what they call the “Tebow Law,” allowing home schooled students to play high school sports.  One interesting note:  in his junior year, Tebow suffered a leg injury late in the first half of a game.  Originally, they thought it was just a leg cramp.  He finished the game.  Later, they found out he had played the entire second half with a broken fibula.

As you already probably know, he went on to play college football with the Florida Gators.  As a freshman, he was a backup to Chris Leak, but he played quite a bit that season.  The Gators won the National Championship that season, 2006.  In 2007, as a sophomore, Tebow became the starter.  He ended up winning the Heisman that year, the first sophomore to ever do so.  In his junior year, he led the Gators to a 13-1 season and went on to win the National Championship again.  He returned his senior year, they went 13-1 again, but the loss was in the SEC Championship game, so they didn’t go on to the Championship that year, instead beating Cincinnati 51-24 in the Sugar Bowl.

A rule labeled the “Tebow Rule” was put in place after he graduated that players could no longer wear messages in their eye black.  The NCAA claims it wasn’t just because of Tebow, though.

He was drafted in the first round by the Denver Broncos, 25th overall.  He only played in six games his rookie season, and was the starter in the final 3 games of the season.  This season, the season started off with Kyle Orton as the starter in the first five and a half games, taking the Broncos to a 1-4 start.  Tebow took over at halftime against the Chargers, but couldn’t quite pull off the comeback.  He started the next game, and the Broncos went on a 7-1 run, then lost their last three games of the season, but managed to get into the postseason, winning the AFC West.

Thanks for reading!

-Jason

All Football, All the Time!