Tebowphenia

It's been a little while, so let me comment on the onrush of Tim Tebow madness that, up until yesterday's loss to the Pats, seemed poised to overtake the nation worse than a plague of mosquitos or Ron Paul political ads (sidenote: anyone catch the "hip, young" ad that's running now, full of flashy graphics and what not? I expected ole Ron to say "tubeular" or something at the end). Anyway, I am not what one would call a Tebowaholic, but in the aftermath of our long national nightmare coming to an end, I can feel more charitable towards the guy.

In our hyper-aware era of overblown praise and equally overdone criticism, it's easy to forget that the guy is just a quarterback for a major team, albeit one whose abilities at the position are questionable to say the least (hell, the guy has skills, I'll admit that. You try and get anyone else to pull off some of the wins he got over the season, you just can't). He's been bought up wholesale by the right-wing illiterati of this nation as some kind of "savior" from the mean, arrogant (read: black) professional athletes who dominate so much of our culture more with their antics off the field than on (though sometimes the two intermingle, as in the case of Terrell Owens). Does this mean that every gun-hating, baby-aborting liberal in the world has to hate him in return?

I am putting it out there: I don't like the guy more because of what he's become to the other side than what he is, or who he is. Who he is is a son of missionaries who returns to the Phillippines (hope I spelled that right, that's one country whose name defies my internal spellcheck) to assist in making lives better for the children there, with the mission of spreading his view of God's word (which is Christian, in his case) as a side note. The guy has never been in trouble with the law, he's never been known to do anything that would reveal him as a hypocrite, and he's never been afraid to put his opinions out there...as opinions, not as truths that other people have to buy into. For that, I can't fault him.

What I can fault him for, or what I can fault his handlers for, is the way in which it's either "you're with us or against us" in the current political climate that surrounds the poor kid (and let's remember, he's a kid, still). When the debate over his abilities as a quarterback became personalized (i.e., as a question of whether his moral faith was a help or hinderance to his reaching fans), I began to feel almost beholden to dislike him. Not because I disagree with him about his right to hold an opinion contrary to my own, but because those who put him up as an example made it a litmus test for patriotism or faith or whatever. When you reduce someone to a soundbite or a catchphrase, you negate the very important, very conflicted sides of a person's nature and render him a statue (someone much smarter than me must have come up with that or something similar, I don't feel like it's an original thought).

More importantly, the Tebow debate raises an important point that I think needs addressing: our almost psychopathic need to first have someone in a heroic position and then to remove said person from our esteem, most notably with an act so deplorable that we can never look at him the same way again. For the haters as much as the lovers, Tim Tebow is a lightening rod, and unless (or until) he suffers some public humiliation akin to Tiger Woods, Bill Clinton, or some other public figure who has faced the level of both adoration and dislike as he has, they won't forgive him his position as a figurehead for morality in the eyes of many.

I can remember when O.J. Simpson and Michael Jackson were still regarded in their previous light (awesome athlete and musical superstar, respectively) before we learned that OJ was at best a wife-abuser (and at worst, a multiple murderer) and Jacko liked little boys...really liked little boys. That sense of betrayal with both guys (whose falls from grace were almost simultaneous) colors the way we see them now, even if our loss of faith is rewarded (as in the incarceration of OJ on unrelated matters...see, he was guilty!) or denied (Jacko went to his grave never really vindicated in the eyes of many, despite his aquittals and/or settlements).

With Tebow, we're all caught up in the first rush of a love (or hate) affair; we only know what we're supposed to know, how he's doing incredible things and also telling us how we should live. Until we see him as more human or less god-like (whichever comes first) we're gonna carry around that image of him, come hell or high water. I don't want to actively root against the guy, but I'm not comfortable rooting for him, either. When my dislike of him began, he was still at Florida, and Urban Meyer's health was related to whether or not Tebow (who can be something of a drama queen himself) came back to play (you'll notice how quickly Urb left town when Tebow jumped to the NFL). His beliefs didn't really play into that, though I can see where some will find issue with his soapbox. But I ask those who support him because of his beliefs, weren't you the same people who got irked every time some Hollywood celebrity bashed Bush or said something you didn't like? Isn't that hypocritical of you to say that his opinions should be respected when you couldn't afford the same to Kanye or Alec Baldwin?

It all seems like we're living in a hyper-realized age, and we just need to take a step back. Maybe now that Tebowpocalypse doesn't seem to be happening anymore (well, at least not this season), we can take a step back and let the kid's game speak for him. Because when all the lovers and haters jump off their respective bandwagons and move on to the next thing, we'll be left with a kid who's much better than a lot of people gave him credit for, but who isn't all that yet. I hope that Tim Tebow has success in his career, that he isn't exposed as a fraud or worse, and that he can survived the scrutiny of our over-sensitive age. He isn't Jesus with a football, but he's not the anti-Christ of quarterbacks either. He's just a dude, like you and me.