Chuck Klosterman has a strong piece on the people who hate Tim Tebow. I liked this piece because it inverted the usual structure of the Tebow discussion, which I can summarize as “TEBOWTEBOWTEBOWTEBOWHARFHARFHARF”. (Or, as Spencer Hall has accurately put it: “YOUR STUPID NON-COLLEGE-FOOTBALL-WATCHING RELATIVE SAYS: ‘Oregon has the uniforms and the colors and the things, don’t they? What’s with that? Hey, what do you think of Tim Tebow? ‘Cause I’ve got some real strong opinions I’d like to share.’”) From Klosterman:
The crux here, the issue driving this whole “Tebow Thing,” is the matter of faith. It’s the ongoing choice between embracing a warm feeling that makes no sense or a cold pragmatism that’s probably true. And with Tebow, that illogical warm feeling keeps working out. It pays off. The upside to secular thinking is that — in theory — your skepticism will prove correct. Your rightness might be emotionally unsatisfying, but it confirms a stable understanding of the universe. Sports fans who love statistics fall into this camp. People who reject cognitive dissonance build this camp and find the firewood. But Tebow wrecks all that, because he makes blind faith a viable option. His faith in God, his followers’ faith in him — it all defies modernity. This is why people care so much. He is making people wonder if they should try to believe things they don’t actually believe.
There’s lots here, but I do think it’s right, especially the point about the statistics crowd. The statistics crowd wants everyone to understand just how unlikely it is that Tebow is winning or that he will continue to win; how unorthodox this whole thing is versus the typical pro quarterback; and most of all they — and I really wonder if it is because understanding football requires knowledge on multiple levels and the stats guys don’t really “get” the things that Tebow does well — have a difficult time both appreciating a guy’s performance and results without having to feel like he’s the greatest quarterback ever and will inevitably “change the game” or whatever (Cam Newton and maybe Robert Griffin III are more likely to “change the game” than Tebow).
In any event, I don’t really understand why Tebow is so polarizing, on both sides. As Klosterman says, “Equally bizarre is the way both groups [in the Tebow debate] perceive themselves as the oppressed minority who are fighting against dominant public opinion, although I suppose that has become the way most Americans go through life.” I do know that the stats guys all seem to think Tebow is terrible, while there are almost no coaches I know that don’t respect and root for Tebow. With that group, you hear a lot of “that guy could lead and quarterback my team any time.” Tebow has an awful lot to improve upon if he wants sustained success, but the success he’s had so far is not exactly a mystery.