Couch: In A World Of Absolutes, Tim Tebow's Case Is Not Black Or White
Tim Tebow is God and football. He is white privilege. He’s a guy who never gives up. He’s a folk hero. He’s a publicity stunt and a ticket salesman. He’s civic outreach. He’s worth a chance. He doesn’t deserve a chance.
He has proven he can’t play football. He’s a proven great football winner.
What is it about Tim Tebow that makes people see whatever they want in him? He’s like a trick mirror, reflecting a different image to everyone who looks at him. Tebow is the final proof of so many things, many of them contrasting.
And that doesn’t work well today, where there are only two things in this world: Right and wrong. Good and bad. Black and white. Right and left. Follow and cancel. I guess that’s more than two, but the point is, there is no gray zone.
Tebow finally signed with the Jacksonville Jaguars and his former college coach, Urban Meyer, on Thursday. Tebow will get to try out as a backup tight end and be paid, presumably, the NFL minimum.
What do you see in that? What do you make of it?
To me, he’s a guy willing to start at the bottom again, trying to be a good person at all times, never giving up.
“Is this not an example of white privilege?’’ Stephen A. Smith said on ESPN’s First Take. “What brother you know is getting this opportunity? Now that makes people uncomfortable because we’re talking about race when I say something like that. Let me be the first to say: I don’t give a damn how you feel.
“I mean what I say.’’
When I heard Smith say that, my first thought was that he didn’t mean what he was saying at all. He’s paid to set off Twitter, and he was setting off Twitter. He did it in September, using the same words, when Steve Nash was hired to be the New Jersey Nets head coach. Smith called it white privilege. Two months later, he signed what was reportedly a five-year, $8 million a year contract extension with ESPN.
I’m sure I can sit here and think up examples of recent white athletes or coaches who got opportunities they didn’t deserve as much as their black counterparts. I can also find examples the other way: Did Michael Jordan take away an opportunity from a minor league baseball player when he left the Chicago Bulls to play for the Birmingham Barons, even though he’d never played professional baseball before?
You can find examples of anything if you look hard enough, and that’s because things really aren’t that simple.
Jemele Hill, writer for the Atlantic and podcaster/TV star covering sports and society, said Tebow was getting an opportunity that Colin Kaepernick never got, to come back and play football. To her, that was because Kaepernick is black and Tebow white.
And then that became a talking point, even though most NFL teams did set up a tryout for Kaepernick. He sabotaged it, didn’t show up for it, tried to arrange another one on his terms and took a settlement from the NFL instead.
Kaerpernick, who was blackballed after he started kneeling for the national anthem, is not interested in playing football. His career is based on the image of being the guy who doesn’t get a chance. Getting a chance would mess up his gig.
He’s selling what he has. So is Tebow. That’s the only connection between them that I see.
You aren’t supposed to see complexities anymore. They don’t fit into a social media post. But I do think Smith is wrong. I think Hill is wrong.
Kaepernick did get another shot, after he didn’t. And Tebow is not getting another shot to play quarterback. Nothing is handed to him, other than a chance to try out. He’s a big, strong, fast athlete who fights like hell, works like hell, has a history of breaking tackles, getting extra yards and winning.
NFL coaches will look anywhere to find talent. Tebow is worth a look. The New York Jets would’ve loved for Tebow to have tried this nine years ago, when he left the NFL. So someone thought he had the skills for this. He has also stayed in shape, playing minor league baseball for five years.
Still, you cannot just completely divorce race from anything in America now. That’s just the way it is. And to a lot of people, Tebow has always been a great white hope. That’s not the main part of his appeal, but it is a piece of it.
Also, as a Heisman Trophy and national champion winner at Florida (or, as Smith said, “Florida State’’), Tebow is a local hero. The Jaguars angered their fans by not drafting him, and then did it again by not taking him after the Denver Broncos dumped him.
So was Tebow the beneficiary of white privilege when he was given a chance in minor league baseball? What about when he grinded for five years trying to work his way up?
His name will sell jerseys. His presence will mend fences in Jacksonville.
But I’m betting Meyer has his own view of Tebow: He’s a guy who can help his team win games. If Meyer decides Tebow isn’t the guy for that, then right or wrong, black or white, privilege or great hope, the foot in Tebow’s backside will feel exactly the same.