Bob Stover: The tale of Tim Tebow
The phone rang Tuesday morning and one of our loyal readers was on the other end.
He wanted to question a decision to run a certain story at the top of page 1A that morning.
The article, shown below, was an exclusive from David Jones, who covers the Gators for us in Gainesville.
The University of Florida had decided against nominating Tim Tebow, last season's winner of the Heisman trophy, to Playboy magazine's annual All American team. The school determined that such a nomination would be counter to Tebow's deep religious convictions.
Playboy, on the other hand, had decided Tebow wasn't all that good anyway, and they would just make Pat White of West Virginia their choice as the top quarterback. It wasn't exactly clear if they would have made that decision if Tebow had been nominated.
But the reader didn't really care what either side thought. He was merely upset that we would feature a Gator so prominently. He had suspected for a long time that we were all Gators because we give the team pages of coverage and, by his estimation, short other schools.
And, as if to confiirm his suspicions, here this Tebow story was, at the top of the front page, on a day when oil and stock markets were roiling, hurricanes were forming and wars were being waged.
Those last points are good ones.
One of our responsibilities is to report the really serious things in life. And most any day you will find those sorts of things throughout in the paper. But we try to give readers more than just bad news and we thought a lot of people would find this Tebow story interesting, even if they didn't classify it as "important."
For the record, the reader was way off base on the Gator conspiracy angle. We have a few Gators on staff, but none in a position to make the call about the play of the story.
Personally, I'm an Arkansas Razorback fan. Last year ,I was very disappointed when Tebow beat out the Hogs' Darren McFadden for the Heisman.
But even I can see why Tim Tebow is special and why, in this market, people can't seem to get enough of him:
# He won the Heisman as a sophomore and is known for both his passing and running skills.
# He appears to be as straight-arrow, gee whiz, All-American as they come.
# He plays hurt.
# He's never been arrested for anything. He does mission work, for heaven's sake.
I've seen women visibly swoon and grown men get misty-eyed talking about him.
Truth is, even a Seminole fan probably would give this Gator quarterback some respect.
And that's news. Even worth the top of Page 1A on some days.
