Tebow worship: ridiculous to anyone else?

COLLEGE FOOTBALL

Anyone who has watched or paid attention to college football this season knows the name Tim Tebow. On Sunday, the Heisman Trophy winner and two-time national champion from the University of Florida announced he will return to Florida for his senior season.

With that being said, I was watching the national championship game Jan. 8 and heard the ridiculous commentary of FOX analyst and broadcaster Thom Brenneman.

Brenneman turned out phrases such as “spend time with Tebow and you’re a better person,” and “I think that’s the first wrong thing he’s ever done.” Brenneman’s lack of objectivity was a little hard to watch.

The media are ideally designed to be unbiased, and I understand the opinion that Tebow is a tremendous human being off the field, but that kind of commentary made me a little sick.

Just in case you are wondering, I don’t dislike Tebow. He is a good human being and some fans say he might be the best college player of all time.

But this idea that he is Mother Teresa or someone else whose very presence is astonishing, is an incredible thing to try and pass off.

I am excited to see Tebow is coming back for another year. It is good for the publicity and the overall popularity of the sport. He is a phenomenal player.

The only thing I wish I could resist is this consistent worship the media gives him. There are other great human beings involved in college football and Tebow has no claim to being the best one off the field.

I am also a fan of Brenneman. He is one of the broadcasters of my favorite baseball team, the Cincinnati Reds, but he really went over the top on the Tebow comments.

Tebow is a likeable guy, but the commentary of the championship game and what I have heard from other major media sources is hard to stomach.

With all the bad things athletes do off the field, it is refreshing to see a guy who has character and knows who he is. But come on, really? Let’s talk about what he does on the field instead of what he does off it. That is the media’s job: report objectively and without bias.

As a member of the media, I know it naturally would be easier to report on guys like Tebow than a guy like Adam “Pacman” Jones or Marcus Vick.

But it is not my job to tell you how good a guy he is. It is my job, however, to speak on what the guy does on the football field and there is no argument on Tebow’s greatness on the gridiron.

BASEBALL

Monday, former Red Sox slugger Jim Rice was finally inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

It took Rice 15 tries to gain access to the Hall, which is voted on by major baseball writers around the country.

It is great to see this headline, but I have to wonder what in the world took so long.

Rice played all of his 15 seasons with Boston, hitting .289 along with 382 home runs. He was a top five finalists for American League MVP six times, winning the award in 1978, and led the Sox to the World Series in 1986.

I believe the reason for his long awaited entry is the lack of a World Series ring. Unfortunately, that is one of the most important stats of all.

Why should an individual be kept from a prestigious award only because his team never won the big one?

Congratulations to Jim Rice. He deserves to be in the Hall. I sincerely hope that in the future other athletes are not kept out because they don’t have the biggest team achievement. Sadly, I know they will.