Tim Tebow: Survivor to Superstar

A dream can be pow­er­ful. It can turn enthu­si­asm into suc­cess. For one, hum­ble young man, his dream is grad­u­ally becom­ing his real­ity. Yet it would not have hap­pened with­out his fam­ily, with­out their love and faith. In fact, his fam­ily saved his life. In this les­son we will look at how Tim Tebow’s fam­ily helped him put a solid foun­da­tion on his life, and how he has also found a model of faith and char­ity in some­one else in his life.

Heis­man History

Tim Tebow made foot­ball his­tory at the end of this col­lege sea­son by becom­ing the first under­class­man (fresh­man or sopho­more) ever to win the Heis­man tro­phy. After a solid start as a fresh­man, Tebow became a start­ing quar­ter­back for the Florida Gators’ his sopho­more year and has bro­ken South­east­ern Con­fer­ence records for rush­ing touch­downs.  Tebow fin­ished the reg­u­lar sea­son with 3,132 pass­ing yards and 29 touch­downs.  He also ran for 838 yards and 22 touch­downs, becom­ing the first player in Divi­sion I-​​A foot­ball his­tory to both pass and rush over 20 touch­downs in a season.

“It’s some­thing I used to dream about,” Tebow says of his Heis­man win on the Florida Gators’ web­site.  “For it to come true, it’s unbe­liev­able.  It’s special.”

Char­ac­ter from the clan

Not only is his win spe­cial, the hum­ble and soft-​​spoken Tebow brings char­ac­ter to the game. A solid fam­ily life and faith in God is what led a high-​​school-​​aged Tebow to pro­claim in an inter­view with The Bap­tist Press, “Just because you play foot­ball you’re no more impor­tant than any­one else.”

The youngest of five chil­dren, Tebow could not recite his own stats dur­ing inter­views when asked about his play.  Grow­ing up in a fam­ily of home­school­ers, he was allowed to play ball with the local high school when the state of Florida passed a law allow­ing home­school­ers to play high school sports.

As a boy, he had always been very enthu­si­as­tic about sports. As his suc­cesses on the field mounted, his par­ents would remind him of a Bible verse to keep him hum­ble: Proverbs 27:2 “Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.”

Sur­vivor, thanks to mom and dad

Tim began beat­ing the odds long before he ever picked up a foot­ball. Before he was born, doc­tors strongly urged his par­ents to abort the preg­nancy. The physi­cians believed the unborn baby had been severely, maybe even fatally, harmed in the womb by med­ica­tions they’d given his mom to fight off an infection.

The details of the dis­cus­sions between the doc­tors and Tim’s par­ents are an inspir­ing story all their own, and we’ve asked Pam and Bob to tell us exactly how every­thing hap­pened. They were unavail­able at press time, but have promised to fill us in for our next lesson.

In the mean­time, suf­fice it to say that their courage to stand up to the doc­tors and trust in the Great Physi­cian — Jesus — paid off: Timmy was born under­weight but oth­er­wise healthy.

“We were con­cerned at first because he was so mal­nour­ished,” recalls Pam, “but he def­i­nitely made up for it.”

And how. Today, Tim stands 6’3” and weighs 235 pounds.

“I really have a heart to encour­age moms and women to trust the Lord with all their heart for all their lives,” says Pam about the chal­lenges of motherhood.

Mis­sion­ary man

Brought up with this solid faith, Tim Tebow heeds his call as an evan­ge­lizer and role model in soci­ety very seri­ously.  He reg­u­larly shares his Chris­t­ian faith in talks to youth around the country.

Tim’s father, Bob, has spent years shar­ing his Chris­t­ian faith with peo­ple in the Philip­pines, has helped to build an orphan­age there and has also orga­nized med­ical help for the poor. Every sum­mer Bob brings young peo­ple from the United States to help him on his work there. His son Tim has been a reg­u­lar par­tic­i­pant in these youth mis­sions and really loves it.

Says Tim, “Its been a great expe­ri­ence. We go into med­ical clin­ics, hos­pi­tals, pris­ons, mar­ket places and schools. You preach and help out. We go to the orphan­age and a lot of things like that. It’s a great expe­ri­ence. I love going every year and I can’t wait until I go back. Every time you go you learn some­thing dif­fer­ent, and it changes your life even more.”

Tim Tebow acknowl­edges that work­ing with peo­ple so dis­ad­van­taged has changed the way he looks at the world.

Find­ing fam­ily spirit

It is no won­der that Tim Tebow chose the Uni­ver­sity of Florida to pur­sue his career and foot­ball aspi­ra­tions.  Major­ing in Fam­ily, Youth and Com­mu­nity Sci­ences, Tebow has found another fam­ily of his own in his team­mates and Gators’ coach, Urban Meyer.  Coach Meyer, a Catholic and another solid fam­ily man has said of Tim Tebow, “He’s such a pos­i­tive influ­ence.  He’s such an unselfish guy.”  Coach Meyer acknowl­edges that Tim Tebow is the kind of role model young peo­ple can look up to.

Coach’s favorite team

Coach Meyer and his wife, Shel­ley, main­tain a strong fam­ily life.  Shel­ley cred­its her hus­band in part, for always keep­ing his fam­ily in the know about his sched­ule.  The sched­ule of a famous col­lege foot­ball coach is demand­ing, but, like foot­ball, team­work is the name of the game.  Shel­ley is a stay-​​at-​​home mother who spends her time attend­ing to her three chil­dren and vol­un­teer­ing in the community.

For Coach Meyer, devot­ing time to his fam­ily is as impor­tant to him as it is to them. He once found him­self with some time after his foot­ball com­mit­ments were com­pleted, so he took advan­tage of a police escort to catch a few min­utes of his son’s base­ball game.    Coach Meyer makes time to spend week­ends away with his son.  He also has set aside “date nights” to spend indi­vid­ual time with his teen daughters.

Faith: part of the program

Faith is an impor­tant aspect of the Mey­ers lives as well. “Spir­i­tual health is very impor­tant to our kids and our play­ers.  It’s very impor­tant to us,” Shel­ley Meyer said in an inter­view with The Gainsville Sun.  “Faith is the only thing that can get you through the hard times.”

The Mey­ers fam­ily attends Queen of Peace parish where their two teen daugh­ters are prepar­ing to make their con­fir­ma­tion.  Shel­ley her­self was raised Protes­tant and she and her hus­band, have also taken their chil­dren to Protes­tant churches in the area so they can be famil­iar with their mother’s Chris­t­ian back­ground as well.

Father­hood and football

Like Tim Tebow, Coach Urban Meyer takes his posi­tion as a role model very seri­ously.  Recruit­ing is one of the things any col­lege coach must be good at.  Coach Meyer treats his recruits like fam­ily – they spend time at the Meyer fam­ily home and he has been known to text mes­sage them almost daily, just to check in and see how they are doing.

Rela­tion­ship build­ing is an impor­tant part of the coach’s recruit­ing process in that both the coach and his play­ers see their Gators’ team as an extended fam­ily.  The dif­fer­ence that Coach Meyer brings to the lives of these ath­letes is his sin­cere con­cern for them.  Many recruits often com­ment that he truly makes him­self avail­able to them, and, when he wants to know how things are, it is because he means it.

Tim Tebow admires these qual­i­ties in his coach. As he said in an inter­view with The New York Times,”That’s one thing that’s so great about Coach Meyer is that he does real­ize that there’s things more impor­tant than foot­ball. Help­ing guys out, chang­ing their lives. There’s count­less guys on the team … that he’s totally changed their lives, did a 180. … He’s so much more than a foot­ball coach, he’s like a fatherto a lot of guys. He’s one of the best coaches in col­lege foot­ball, but he’s more than that. He’s inter­ested in help­ing peo­ple and doing the right thing.”

Success in selflessness

Shel­ley Meyer cred­its the team’s suc­cesses to this close-​​knit fam­ily feel­ing.  “That’s why they win,” she said.  “That’s exactly why they win.  Egos are left some­where else.  That’s just a really spe­cial thing about our team.”  Sounds like a place called home for a young, hum­ble foot­ball star named Tim Tebow.

Form­ing for fatherhood

There is always talk that suc­cess­ful col­le­giate ath­letes and coaches will one day find their way to the pros.  Per­haps that dream will also become a real­ity in the future for Tim Tebow or Coach Urban Meyer.  Shel­ley Meyer is quick to remark, “Urban’s call­ing is really to men­torand role model and teach these col­lege guys how to be good dads and good hus­bands.”  That is the prepa­ra­tion for real life that Coach Urban Meyer brings to his team.

In the player of Tim Tebow, Coach Meyer’s exam­ple is just one more per­son mod­el­ing behav­ior that his fam­ily has instilled in him since he was a child.  For the world of foot­ball and for the world out­side of foot­ball, these two men have become shin­ing exam­ples of what it means to live faith in every day life.

Bible Blurbs

“Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I con­se­crated you.” (Jere­miah 1:5)

“Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips.” (Proverbs 27:2)

“For this rea­son I kneel before the Father, from whom every fam­ily in heaven and on earth is named.” (Eph­esians 3: 14-​​15)

“Go there­fore and make dis­ci­ples of all nations, bap­tiz­ing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Hoy Spirit, teach­ing them to observe all that I have com­manded you; and Lo, I am with you always, until the close of the age.” (Matthew 28: 19-​​20)

“And the King will answer them, truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)

Pope Quotes

“The nat­ural fam­ily, as an inti­mate com­mu­nion of life and love, based on mar­riage between a man and a woman, con­sti­tutes “the pri­mary place of ‘human­iza­tion’ for the per­son and soci­ety,” and a “cra­dle of life and love.”(Bene­dict XVI, Mes­sage for World Day of Peace 2008, no. 2)

“This point mer­its spe­cial reflec­tion: every­thing that serves to weaken the fam­ily … con­sti­tutes an objec­tive obsta­cle on the road to peace.”(Bene­dict XVI, Mes­sage for World Day of Peace 2008, no. 5)

“Today, too, there is a need for dis­ci­ples of Christ who give unstint­ingly of their time and energy to serve the Gospel. There is a need for young peo­ple who will allow God’s love to burn within them and who will respond gen­er­ously to his urgent call.” (Bene­dict XVI, July 20, 2007)

“Do not be afraid to become holy mis­sion­ar­ies like Saint Fran­cis Xavier …  or like Saint Thérèse of the Child Jesus … Be pre­pared to put your life on the line in order to enlighten the world with the truth of Christ; to respond with love to hatred and dis­re­gard for life; to pro­claim the hope of the risen Christ in every cor­ner of the earth.”(Bene­dict XVI, July 20, 2007)

Cat­e­chism Clips

2205 The Chris­t­ian fam­ily is a com­mu­nion of per­sons, a sign and image of the com­mu­nion of the Father and the Son in the Holy Spirit.

2207 The fam­ily is the com­mu­nity in which, from child­hood, one can learn moral val­ues, begin to honor God, and make good use of freedom.

2210 The impor­tance of the fam­ily for the life and well-​​being of soci­ety entails a par­tic­u­lar respon­si­bil­ity for soci­ety to sup­port and strengthen mar­riage and the family.

2472 The duty of Chris­tians impels them to act as wit­ness of the Gospel.  This wit­ness is a trans­mis­sion of the faith in words and deeds.

2272 The Church does not thereby intend to restrict the scope of mercy (by con­demn­ing abor­tion). Rather, she makes clear the grav­ity of the crime com­mit­ted, the irrepara­ble harm done to the inno­cent who is put to death, as well as to the par­ents and the whole of society.

Saints and Heroes

Priest Ded­i­cated to Edu­cat­ing Young Peo­ple in the Philippines

Fr. Jesus Rey­naldo Roda, OMI

(Gave his life on Jan­u­ary 15, 2008)

Fr. Rey­naldo Roda was a mem­ber of a Catholic mis­sion­ary com­mu­nity, the Oblates of Mary Immac­u­late. He ded­i­cated his life to help­ing the poor, youth, and fam­i­lies in the Philip­ines. For the past ten years he ran a mis­sion­ary sta­tion and Notre Dame High School –which has about 30 students-​​ on the island town­ship of Tabawan, Philip­ines, in the south­ern part of the Philip­pine islands.

Most of the Philip­pines is gen­er­ally peace­ful, and is pre­dom­i­nantly Catholic, but in the south­ern islands, about 650 miles from Manila, Mus­lim extrem­ists have waged a decades-​​long insur­gency. Priests and mis­sion­ar­ies have often been the tar­get of Mus­lim extremists.

Father Roda had received death threats from the al-​​Queda linked Abu Sayyaf group, which has gained noto­ri­ety for bomb attacks, kid­nap­pings and hostage behead­ings. How­ever, Father refused to aban­don the young peo­ple who attended his mis­sion and school. On Tues­day, Jan­u­ary 15, about 10 gun­men believed to be from the al-​​Qaeda-​​linked group seized Father Roda while he was pray­ing in the chapel to take him cap­tive and shot him dead when he resisted. Accord­ing to a wit­ness, Fr. Roda said that he pre­ferred to be killed right there and then rather than be taken hostage and used for ran­som. Father Roda was the third Catholic mis­sion­ary killed in this south­ern area of the Philip­ines in recent years.

Pope Bene­dict XVI heard of the news and imme­di­ately sent a telegram to the bish­ops of the Philip­ines, prais­ing the courage and faith­ful­ness of Fr. Roda. The pope also com­mended Fr. Roda’s exam­ple to priests and peo­ple through­out the region, and espe­cially to the young.  (Source: Asso­ci­ated Press Jan­u­ary 18, 2008 and other sources)

From Self-​​fascination to Love for Others

St Maria de Mattias

Vir­gin and Foundress of the Sis­ters Ador­ers of the Blood of Christ
(entered heaven August 20th, 1866)

Maria was born in the early 1800’s in cen­tral Italy.  Her fam­ily was com­fort­able and aris­to­cratic, and she spent her youth close to her father, who read to her from the Bible and even gave her the rudi­ments of an edu­ca­tion (girls didn’t receive for­mal stud­ies at that time in that place).  She devel­oped sen­si­tiv­ity for spir­i­tual things, and an appre­ci­a­tion for the Scrip­tures, but in her teenage years, liv­ing in the rel­a­tive iso­la­tion that her social class required, she became self-​​absorbed.  She spent more and more time admir­ing her own beauty and fan­ta­siz­ing about the won­der­ful life it would bring her.  Some­how, though, when she was about 17, her day­dreams turned sour.  She expe­ri­enced a kind of exis­ten­tial cri­sis, which must have been the fruit of grace, because when she turned to prayer and to her dad in order to get out of it, seek­ing from those sources light and wis­dom about the true mean­ing of life, God granted her a mys­ti­cal vision of Christ cru­ci­fied, in which she per­ceived the beauty of God’s love in the blood spilled by Our Sav­ior.  She found in Christ the burn­ing, higher love that her heart had been vainly search­ing for in worldly dreams, and she found it in the beauty of Christ’s blood.

That expe­ri­ence, matured in prayer, moved her to take to the streets of Italy, which were stained by the blood of count­less feuds and civil wars in those years, to preach what she had expe­ri­enced.  She wanted to help oth­ers see Christ’s love as he had helped her see it.  She received another boost that same year when a holy preacher (Saint Gas­par del Bufalo) led a mis­sion in her home town.  He preached so effec­tively that she could see the change in the lives of her fel­low towns­peo­ple.  This gave her con­fi­dence.  It showed her that God could use human words to do in oth­ers what he had done directly in her.

Soon her zeal made her known, and the bishop asked her to take over a house for poor girls, where she cared for them, taught them their faith and some trades, and even the basics of aca­d­e­mics (she had taught her­self to read and write).  Her teach­ing was amaz­ingly effec­tive.  Soon the moth­ers started com­ing to lis­ten as well.  And then they brought their sons too (not just their daugh­ters).  And even though the social mores for­bade her to speak to men, groups of men started gath­er­ing out­side the win­dows to lis­ten in.  The local shep­herds, dodg­ing the rules of eti­quette, sneaked into town at night and begged her to teach them about Christ.

She attracted a fol­low­ing and formed a reli­gious Con­gre­ga­tion of women ded­i­cated to preach­ing the love of Christ, so as to trans­form every heart and thereby change all of soci­ety.  By the time of her death when she was 61, she had founded 70 com­mu­ni­ties, usu­ally in small, out-​​of-​​the-​​way towns.  By the time of her beat­i­fi­ca­tion almost 100 years later, the num­ber had soared to 400. Her feast day is Feb­ru­ary 4.
(Source:www.collegecompass.org)

Virtue Ver­i­fi­ca­tion

Accep­tance - approv­ing recep­tion; approval

Aspi­ra­tion - strong desire or ambition

Call­ing - an inner urg­ing toward some pro­fes­sion or activ­ity; vocation

Char­ac­ter - moral strength; self-​​discipline, for­ti­tude, determination

Con­cern - inter­est in or regard for a per­son or thing; charity

Evan­ge­lize - to preach the gospel (the good news)

Faith – belief and trust in God

Humil­ity – being sim­ple; hon­esty in rec­og­niz­ing that one’s good qual­i­ties come from God’s gen­eros­ity; unpre­ten­tious­ness; hav­ing or show­ing a con­scious­ness of one’s defects or short­com­ings; not proud; not self-​​assertive; modest

Love –1. a deep and ten­der attach­ment or devo­tion to a per­son or per­sons
2. God’s ten­der regard and con­cern for all human beings
3. devo­tion to and desire for God as the supreme good

Men­tor - a wise, loyal advisor

Self­less­ness - devoted to oth­ers’ wel­fare or inter­ests and not one’s own; unselfish; altruistic

Stead­fast­ness - firm, fixed, set­tled, or estab­lished; not chang­ing, fickle or waver­ing; constant

Strength - the power to resist strain, stress, etc.; tough­ness; durability

Sup­port - to give courage, faith, or con­fi­dence to; help or comfort

Trust – 1. firm belief or con­fi­dence in the hon­esty, integrity, reli­a­bil­ity, jus­tice, etc. of another per­son or thing; faith 2. con­fi­dent expec­ta­tion, antic­i­pa­tion, or hope

Dis­cus­sion Questions

1. Tim Tebow’s par­ents had to put their trust in God rather than in the doc­tors who advised abor­tion. Do you think this was an easy time in their life? Where do you think they found the strength to be stead­fast in their love for God’s gift of life? Do you think their strength helps Tim today? In what ways might it help?
2. Accord­ing to researchers, doc­tors are fre­quently telling women they should con­sider abor­tion when con­fronted with var­i­ous med­ical sit­u­a­tions affect­ing their health. Yet, as promi­nent researcher Joel Brind notes,  and as Tim Tebow’s story shows, doc­tors can suc­cess­fully treat both mother and child with­out sug­gest­ing the baby be killed to spare the mother’s life. Why do you think this pres­sure for abor­tion is a com­mon prac­tice in soci­ety today? Can you think of any ways we can change this men­tal­ity? How can Tim Tebow’s story help to affect this change?
3. Why did Tim Tebow’s par­ents teach him to fol­low the verse from Proverbs 27:2 – Let another praise you, and not your own mouth; a stranger, and not your own lips?
4. How might Tim Tebow be dif­fer­ent if he was raised in a fam­ily with­out such strong values?
5. In what ways do good mar­riages and fam­i­lies help chil­dren become good mem­bers of soci­ety? What dif­fi­cul­ties in life can strong fam­i­lies and strong mar­riages help chil­dren and young peo­ple overcome?
6. Do you think Tim Tebow’s effort to wit­ness to his faith and share it with oth­ers is some­thing worth imi­tat­ing? Do you think this world would be a bet­ter place if more peo­ple knew and loved Jesus Christ? In what ways might it be bet­ter? Do you think Catholics do enough to share their faith with others?
7. Why does Coach Meyer’s per­sonal atten­tion make such a dif­fer­ence to his team both on and off the field? Can you give any other exam­ples of pro­fes­sions where con­cern for oth­ers can be a key to success?
8. Coach Meyer spends indi­vid­ual time with his chil­dren.  Do you think this is impor­tant as chil­dren become teenagers?  If so, why?
9. Sports can help in the for­ma­tion of char­ac­ter and virtue. List some virtues that can be lived in sports. List some that Tim Tebow has displayed.

Jour­nal Writing

• List the tal­ents that God has given you and write about which ones you might be able to develop into a career.  Are there tal­ents that you have been given that make you uncom­fort­able but that you think God would like for you to work on?  (exam­ples: pub­lic speak­ing, help­ing small chil­dren or the elderly, being a peacemaker)
• Write about a time that was dif­fi­cult for you.  Look­ing back on it now, write about why you believe God allowed this dif­fi­culty to hap­pen in your life.

Activ­i­ties

• Have a debate about ques­tion two of the dis­cus­sion ques­tions: Are doc­tors too likely to advise abor­tion in dif­fi­cult preg­nan­cies? Why or why not is this so? Do you think this can be changed, and if so, how?
• Have a debate about this ques­tion: Should home­schooled stu­dents be allowed to play on high school sports teams?  Why or why not?
• Research your real life role mod­els.  Is their pub­lic life a reflec­tion of their per­sonal convictions?
• Check out the Catholic orga­ni­za­tion Mis­sion­ary Youth (www.youth4missions.com)  for the pos­si­bil­ity of par­tic­i­pat­ing in a mis­sion or orga­nize your own mis­sion:  break into small groups, list peo­ple that you would like to invite to church for Easter Sun­day and then visit them together to invite them to Mass.

Resources

• Offi­cial Heis­man web­site: www.heisman.com
• Unof­fi­cial Tim Tebow fan­site: www.timtebowfans.org
• ESPN’s Tim Tebow pro­file: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/player/profile?playerId=183484
• UF foot­ball web­site: www.gatorzone.com/football
• UF’s first lady of foot­ball: http://gainesville.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070409/SUNFRONT/704090328
• Top quar­ter­back recruit aims to stay grounded in Christ: http://www.bpnews.net/bpnews.asp?id=22513