Tim Tebow & SuperBowl Ad Controversy

 

                                                           

                                                                                                                      

By Garey Ris

By the time Super Bowl XLIV rolls around, millions of words will have been written about the three quarterbacks involved. Of course Peyton Manning and Drew Brees will get more than their fair share. The third signal caller has never played an NFL down.

Associated Press

Tim Tebow wants to talk to you about your uterus.Pro prospect Tim Tebow, just off his stellar career at Florida, will appear with his mother in a controversial pro-life ad that CBS plans to run. As commercials go, it’s already generating lots of conjecture. In other words, it’s probably not the standard Super Bowl spot that aspires merely to be funny, such as the “office linebacker” commercials.
Tebow relishes being a role model. The devout Christian does missionary work, wears eyeblack with Biblical verses and promises to remain a virgin until marriage. In the commercial, by the conservative group Focus on the Family, Tebow’s mother, Pam, will recount how she ignored medical advice to have an abortion when medical problems threatened her life and gave birth to Tim, her fifth child.
Not everyone is happy with the Tebows’ message. “What both Tebows appear to miss in their passionate pro-life advocacy is that it was always Pam Tebow’s choice as to what to do with her pregnancy: though doctors advised her to terminate it, they couldn’t force her to do so,” Latoya Peterson writes at Jezebel. “The Tebows are now taking the stance that the only permissible option is to not terminate pregnancies, effectively denying other women the choice that Pam Tebow herself was able to exercise.”
At Real Clear Sports, Art Spander writes of the changing dynamic for athletes. “Sport used to be so clear. Athletes were athletes,” Spander writes. “They played games, signed autographs and were invited out to dinner by alums who might have been breaking NCAA rules but it wasn’t like robbing a bank or anything. These days are different. Players question coaches, support political candidates and prove they got something out of school other than a letterman’s jacket.”
The Orlando Sentinel’s George Diaz doesn’t like mixing politics and sports, preferring commercials with “talking frogs. Dancing lizards. Clydesdale horses falling in love. Danica Patrick getting her sexy groove on for GoDaddy.com.”

DawgSport’s T. Kyle King defends Tebow’s choice to appear in the ad.

FanHouse’s Jay Mariotti, who isn’t interested in Tebow’s views during the Super Bowl, thinks there’s a lot of downside for any team that drafts him. “Tebow is raising eyebrows across the NFL, where league and team executives must be conscious of public relations within their communities,” Mariotti writes. “When kept in a proper context and equilibrium, the missionary and humanitarian work done by the Tebow family is breathtaking. But to grandstand on the biggest stage in the world makes me wonder if Tebow is more interested in crusading than playing the game.”

However, Yahoo’s Jason Cole argues that Tebow’s popularity could have an immense benefit when the NFL draft comes around.

As for whether Tebow’s actually good enough to quarterback an NFL team, Digital Sports Daily’s Travis Duncan says it’s premature to make much out of Tebow’s early struggles in practice for the Senior Bowl college all-star showcase.