CNN's Dan Merica is reporting that Tebow's win on Sunday, which gives him a 7-1 record, is causing Tebow-mania to sweep the country. The miraculous last-minutes wins of this oft-praying quarterback who unabashedly sports Bible verses on his eye-black, now has even hardened sports announcers beginning to wonder.
"If you were not a believer coming into this game,” said Fox's Daryl Johnston after the most recent Broncos win, “you have to be now.”
Merica claims Tebow has even managed to convince some nonbelievers that more is going on than just football. Les Carpenter of Yahoo Sports, after ensuring readers that he believes in evolution, dinosaurs and the big bang, writes this:
"But I also believe in Tim Tebow because there is no scientific explanation for what is happening to the Denver Broncos. There is no other plausible way to make sense of these games and the amazing, miraculous way with which they win week after week. … It just happened."
In an article titled “Tim Tebow has the Broncos believing they can’t lose,” Mark Kiszla appears to have no doubt that Tebow is getting help from "upstairs."
“The magic of Tim Tebow is bigger than football and grows larger with each late-game miracle by the Broncos. Logic fails to explain this no-way-in-heaven, overtime victory against Chicago, unless you consider: Denver played as if victory were preordained.”
Rick Telander of the Chicago Sun-Times appealed to God directly:
“And God, if you’re reading, doing some Monday-morning quarterbacking, would you mind telling the rest of us what’s up with this proselytizing young minister who did nearly a full minute of his famed 'Tebow-ing' on the goal line, balancing motionless on one knee, chin on fist like Rodin’s 'The Thinker,' while the rest of his team lined up for the opening kickoff?”
The debate about God, Tebow and football is also raging on Twitter with new hash tags such as "#milehighmessiah" launching the discussion to ever wider audiences.
The only people who see no need for debate are believers, such as Tebow's minister, Wayne Hanson, who runs the Summit Church in suburban Denver. He says the reason why the Denver Broncos are 7-1 is because of Tim Tebow's faith.
“It’s not luck,” Hanson told Masslive.com. “Luck isn’t winning six games in a row. It’s favor. God’s favor.”
And it's not just sports commentators who are beginning to feel a twinge of faith. "Tebowing" is on the way to becoming a cottage industry complete with its own t-shirts. This site has page after page of photos of people of all ages "tebowing" in Tebow's now famous prayer position.
Tebow himself is also nonplussed. Just after Sunday's miraculous win, he told Fox reporter Tony Siragusa that “We’re a team that keeps the faith. We just kept believing.”
Tim Tebow, a Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Florida, first made headlines last year when filmed a Super Bowl commercial for Focus on the Family about how his mother, a devout Christian missionary, risked her life to give him birth. Although advised to abort her son following a "placental abruption," she refused and eventually gave birth to a healthy son.
The athlete who refuses to hide his "lamp" - on or off the field - has carried his heroic profession of the faith to such heights that he was just dubbed "God's Quarterback" by the distinguished Wall Street Journal.
Regardless of what he's being called, Tim Tebow will continue to start for the Broncos and fans will continue to watch him "Tebowing" after every miraculous win.
"And maybe that is Tebow’s biggest accomplishment," Merica writes. "In a year when the sports world has been rocked by scandals both on and off the field, Tebow has people interested in a positive sports story.
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