Lynclair

gq:

Maybe This Article Explains Why Tebow Keeps Winning

We profiled the agile Broncos juggernaut back in ‘09, when the NFL was skeptical he’d make a “good” quarterback, let alone professionally play the position at all. Fast forward to last night’s Broncos v. Bears game: He messed up big time, and yet, by the grace of God, his team was victorious. Maybe this outcome has nothing to do with skill, but faith. At least that’s what we concluded after re-reading this GQ article of yore:

He’s a quarterback. He knows it. If anyone’s going to question it, it’s going to be other people—people who mistake Tim Tebow for a jock instead of an influencer, a Christian missionary trying to send a broader message through the medium of America’s most popular game.

“My whole life, my dream has been to be a quarterback,” Tebow’s saying, his voice firm and loud as he paces the stage of this darkened arena in Jacksonville, Florida, a microphone in his hands. “And one day, I want to be a quarterback in the NFL. But ever since I was young, people have said, ‘You know what? You might be a better linebacker. You might be a better running back or tight end.’ “

It’s a humid evening in May. Four months ago, Tebow led the Florida Gators to their second national championship in three years, which explains why this Night of Champions, a $15-a-head “outreach event” for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, has drawn a crowd of 6,200. The phones and cameras of the congregants spark and pop to capture his image. Tebow is six feet three and 245 pounds, all thick polygons and smooth flat planes and inescapable corn-fed handsomeness. He’s wearing a billowy white shirt and loose-fitting jeans that somehow only underscore the solidity of his bulk, like a tarpaulin draped over a concrete pylon. You can see why coaches have always wanted to deploy his body as a battering ram.

But one day, when he was 11, his coach told him to get down on one knee and throw the football as far as he could. It was just an exercise, a drill to build his upper-body muscles. He was a linebacker then. But Tebow did as he was asked. He got down on one knee. He gripped the ball with his left hand and reared back. He swiveled his hips and swung his chest. He released the ball with a slightly sidearm motion, yet the ball flew far and true. His coach watched it go and go—thirty yards, clear downfield. After that, every other position was inferior from Tebow’s point of view, because no other position gave him the control that quarterback did. He had the ball in his hands on every play. And Tim Tebow wants the ball.

Read the rest here.