Drafting a player significantly higher than his talent justifies makes sense from an economic perspective if the popular player generates fan excitement, and given that the Broncos have to stationary passing quarterbacks, in football terms Tebow might allow them to run popular Wildcat sets.
But the more interesting explanations for the pick have to do with Tebow's awe-inspiring Good Works. Tebow was selected above players with "character" issues because of his impeccable behavior.
But the question must be asked, what, exactly, has Tebow done that allows us to conclude he is a morally superior college football player? His charity works are certainly impressive, and by all accounts he participates in such activities for decidedly non-cynical reasons. I do not intend this post as a condemnation of Tim Tebow.
Jason Cole's Yahoo piece begins:
NFL teams seemed to take a strong hint just a day after Ben Roethlisberger was suspended without committing a crime. If there was a theme to the first round of the NFL draft Thursday night, it was that character was put on equal if not higher footing than talent.
Because of the controversy surrounding Ben Roethlisberger, NFL teams have placed a premium on good citizenship. The exemplar of this movement was the choice of Tim Tebow.
Tim Tebow is a good man because he uses his celebrity to aid charities. Ben Roethlisberger has a foundation that supports police dogs, and he gave generously to tsunami victims. Studying the public appearance schedule on his webpage reveals constant appearances at events that raise money for various charities.
Obviously one can donate to charities in a very earnest manner and still be so flawed that the NFL changes its drafting policy based on your behavior.
So, why the confidence that Tebow is the anti-Roethlisberger? What has he done to convince people of his purity?
I would guess, and I have no statistics to support this claim, that it has much to do with his public expressions of faith. There is still a presumption in our society that "religious" means "moral," despite endless examples to the contrary. Nevertheless, Tebow's squeaky clean image rests largely on the notion that he is incredibly religious.
The NBA's version of Tebow is Dwight Howard. So dedicated to Christianity is Howard that befor he was even drafted, Sports Illustrated wrote, "When Dwight Jr. looks at the NBA logo, he imagines a cross superimposed over the slaloming outline of Jerry West."
Howard certainly hasn't run afoul of the law, but this very devout man has hardly been the embodiment of proper morality. The mother of that child now appears on Basketball Wives. She is legally barred from discussing Howard and the show cannot even mention his name.
But the greatest irony brings us back to Mr. Roethlisberger. Both Tebow and Roethlisberger donate to charity, but Big Ben surely does that to improve his public image. It's a smoke screen hiding the deeply immoral truth about his character. We know Tebow is a good person because of his faith...
“I’ve told the Christian players that a Super Bowl ring won’t be worth what a testimony to Jesus in public will be this week,” longtime Steelers chaplain Jay Wilson said. “These players are excited to speak about their faith in Him if they get a chance.”
Several marquee players from both sides -- Shawn Alexander and Matt Hasselback from Seattle and Pittsburgh’s Antwaan Randle El and Ben Roethlisberger, with the famous PFJ (Play for Jesus) tape on his shoes -- should have ample chances to talk about their faith.
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Once again, this post is not meant to argue that Tebow will make the same poor choices that other high-profile Christian athletes have made. Rather, the intent is to question that reflexive assumption that "religious" means "moral." I sincerely hope that despite his obnoxious professions of faith, Tebow manages his career well. The more success he has, the more he will be able to give to those in need. Even if they have to listen to an incoherent sermon, a great many people will benefit.
But why do we think Tebow is different than, say, Dez Bryant, who has a weak-character reputation because he ran afoul of the NCAA's absurd rules?
If asked most sports fans would place Dwight Howard's character above Bryant's. Yet Howard has an illegitimate child with an exotic dancer and Dez Bryant merely violated an NCAA by-law by not being forthcoming about a conversation he had with Deion Sanders.
Perhaps Bryant could have avoided his trouble with a few well-placed Bible quotes on his equipment.
I've always felt that one of the great failings of modern American culture is our preoccupation with intentionality over action. In my eyes, at least, our choice to hold up the Christian ethical system, that says that your mental states and attitudes are more important than the results of your actions in eyes of the Lord, over the ancient Greek ethical systems, that say (and I'm generalizing Aristotle to all of them here) that a man's virtue is evidenced by his effect on the world, has been a mistake.
ReplyDeleteYou can clearly see a delineation between "good" people, who are Christian, and "people who occasionally do good", who are not Christian, in our political discourse. President W. Bush, who started 2 wars, ordered the extraordinary rendition and torture of hundreds of individuals, and failed to intervene during one of our nation's worst natural disasters, indirectly contributing to the ruin of countless lives, is a good, moral person, because Jesus is his favorite philosopher. Obama, who champions the causes of underserved population groups and has at least begun to draw down the extent of our violent military action abroad is black Hitler.
I think this quote from Mark Souder (R-IN), who was recently busted for having an affair with a staffer whom he was working with on an abstinence only video project, perfectly encapsulates the point:
'"I've even acknowledged that it's difficult," he said of sex outside of marriage. "I said this in my (resignation) statement, but I passionately feel it: The ideas aren't proven right or wrong whether an individual fails. The whole Old Testament, from an evangelical perspective, is to show that man can't be perfect. And the whole point of the New Testament is to show that Christ sacrifices for it.'
The mere fact of his expressing his belief in a perfect moral system makes him more moral than someone like Bill Clinton, who did essentially exactly the same thing. The pervasive idea is that conservatism can't fail; you can only fail conservatism. In any sphere - ethical, political, economic, etc.
I think this basic attitude pervades almost every aspect of our society, far beyond just religious and moral questions. Look at the continued insistence that bloggers be held to some kind of established standard for objectivity by traditional journalists, despite the fact that traditional journalism has utterly failed to adhere to any standard of objectivity or serve its basic function to the public over the past 15 years. Friedman is considered more authoritative than, say, Atrios, because Friedman claims to be a very serious objective commentator employed by a news organization that claims to have very serious objective standards, and Atrios is just a dude with a website. Despite the fact that Atrios' track record of informing the public about the state of affairs in the world has been infinitely superior to Friedman's bizarre, often perplexing, predictions and analysis.
Tebow is, in my eyes, just another example of a broad conflation in our society of belief in a system with actual adherence to that system in daily action.