How can you not like Tim Tebow? Even if your team has suffered a loss at his hands, here is a young man that spends his offseason going to foreign countries to provide physical and spiritual aide. Florida inmates have been inspired to better lives through his talks behind bars. He has been allowed by the NCAA to raise funds for charity, and all of this is before we get to his tremendous athletic ability. He is a walking, talking example of a real life hero. Someone you can tell your kids to look up to. Except maybe you ought to rethink that.
What, with all of the good he is doing? Even with all the good he does. Why? Steve McNair. Kobe Bryant. Roger Clemens. LeBron James. Matt Jones. Mark McGwire. How many reasons do you want? While there is no reason to believe Tim Tebow will meet similar disgraces that these athletes have, it is important that we don’t rush to name someone a hero until enough time has passed for their life body of work to be deep enough to be considered.
Who then can qualify as a hero for our children to look to and admire? How about John Wooden, who has proven the genuine goodness of his character for decades now. Dale Murphy, the former Braves slugger who always stayed true to his values. There is an even more important list of people we should identify as great role models. The teacher who has been in the classroom of the child and the child’s parents. The firefighter who runs into a burning building with concern only for the people who don’t want to be inside. The soldier on foreign soil who defends our freedom daily. Coaches, who earn little money, work long hours, don’t win state championships every year, but instill proper values in their players that shape lives forever. These are the people who we should hold up to our children as the people they want to emulate. One last group that needs to be the real heroes to kids? Mom and dad. Parents, we should all work diligently to be the people our children think of first when they are deciding who they want to be.
Time Tebow will probably be a person we can add to the list of heroes thirty or forty years from now. Until then we need to keep in mind that the greatest people in the world probably die with no one ever hearing of them.
Gary Brown
gary@secmatchups.com
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