Thank You Tim Tebow

[HKHaugan]

This is a ‘Tim Tebow’ article. However, it doesn’t seek to delve into the spectrum of emotional upset his name stirs up or even defending his talent and faith. Rather it is about football itself and what he brings to the game. It is also about the attitudinal base of the football world, its culture and practice that gives us a picture of a leadership and mindset out of balance especially when one position becomes overly iconic.

Having watched a few sports news shows it seems commentators vary in their assessments of Tim Tebow from varied assumptions as to how the game should be played. One will unabashedly express admiration for him as an athlete and a person. Others will look at him and say he is incapable of playing in the obviously ‘superior’ league.

What we really have to question is the paradigm, the mindset, the ‘thought box’ that evaluates what football is, who is best at it and the leadership that dominates it. The words ‘orthodox’ and ‘unorthodox’ describe the evaluation process of player and management alike. Unfortunately what was orthodox a few decades ago is not orthodox today. So just what is ‘orthodox?’

The basics premise of football is that it is a team sport in which eleven men play an equal part in getting an oddly shaped ball across a goal line enough times within a specified amount of time to win a game. The stress is each team member playing to the limit of his ability with equal importance and recognition given as his incentive to help the team win. The emphasis is on the quality of the performance, the quality of the coaching staff, the quality of the managing system, the quality and equality of team members and all in balance.

As in all human endeavors an imbalance happens when egos or the concerns of each of these four areas go out of balance and one outweighs the good of the overall goal. From management on across to the player everyone is subject to the pressures of the moment. Management is concerned with money, coaching is concerned with balancing the talent to fit the goal and the players are concerned with the recognition and the time limited opportunities for gaining it. Add to this fan pressure, their financial support and the invisible advertising sponsors whose products pay for the whole process. It’s all about balance and maintaining it through winning.

The main goal of management is to structure a system, a mind-set, a paradigm, into which coaching, management and players buy into. The present paradigm, mind-set, is pocket passing. That is, the whole system rests on the quarterback, his ability to pass, be a leader in practice, the huddle and the game. In essence, it’s idol worship. Therein lies the problem. There is no balance. Even in finances management has to pay inordinate amounts of money for a ‘pocket passer.’ Coaches have to be hired who can build their teams around that concept. Other players are secondary and have to accept their insignificant role in being a supporting cast member and are only as good as their ability to conform to the whiplash of the quarterback concept presently employed. A cast member is really the lower part of the present ‘caste system’ and is given a salary commensurate with his willingness to play that role. Unfortunately his role doesn’t last long due to physical erosion.

OK. Yes, I admit I have taken a cynical view here but I do believe it bears consideration. So what does Tim Tebow have to do with all this?

He doesn’t fit, that’s what. He’s a maverick. He loves football. It’s not about the money, the prestige or notoriety. Loving football is from the school of thought about football that it is a team sport that calls everyone around to play their position to the best of their ability and to want everyone around them to get the glory. He is the personification of what a ‘team’ player is. He may not be the most skilled, best passer or even a great runner. He has what the pundits call ‘intangibles.’ Actually what he has is tangible. He’s a TEAM player. His attitude is the kind that enables the others around him to be seen, recognized and enabled to play their best and be recognized for it. He challenges the very guts of the ‘system’ that breeds inequality and the consequences that incurs. Players who before were lost in an unbalanced pressure cooker to play better are appearing out of nowhere to accomplish that very thing. Runs, interceptions, line play and stretching others to play better in unexpected situations, all this has improved.

That’s why the whole football establishment needs self-evaluation. It’s future, being what it has embraced as a philosophy, will go the way of all systems that refuse to see that truly ‘orthodox’ football is a team sport not centered on one position or one philosophy. That will eventually fade in the shadow of monotony. When former famous quarterbacks are interviewed their comments indicate they only see the game and its present players through the broken lenses of their past success. They simply want to replicate carbon copies of themselves, stars with supporting casts.

What has been lost is the elevated value of football being a TEAM sport where each player boosts the other and the way that is done will be to see where each player’s talent is molded and encouraged to give his all for the benefit of the others. This is when ego finds its true fulfillment. Every one is part of the team. Each position from owner to player is recognized for the job each has done in fulfilling the task at hand. Actually that is the quarterback’s job, to help lift the other guy up. If he is a leader that’s what he’ll do.

The old single wing with its power running backs and grubby linemen lit up the field with their mud-soaked faces, their battered and bruised bodies, their bloody smiles. But both teams came off with mutual back-pats shared equally by crowd and player alike.

If what we see in Tim Tebow and others like him is something that brings the wholeness of football back then management, players and coaches alike should see how they can work together and return that balance. It will mean more creative strategy by coaches, a new way of judging talent and fitting players together. It could even mean innovations in recruiting and hiring plus an excitement for the fan base that will be saying “Can’t wait for the next game!”

Oh yes, by the way, anybody remember Fran Tarkenton, Roger Staubach, Y.A.Tittle, Bronco Nagurski, Jim Brown, Mark Harmon, the ‘Gallopin’ Gael’?

So thanks Tim, for opening a door that needed opening.

A follow-up article will give a biblical parallel to the above.