The Barrister

A simple point for today: Fuck Tim Tebow and a pox on ESPN for taking today's 25th anniversary of the only time he touched a vagina and making it into an insufferable blow fest.

I don't watch ESPN's morning programming, mind you, so I can't pretend to claim that their coverage of this non-event ruined my day or that I am now hoarse from raging at my television over coffee and Cheerios. Even that distance from ESPN's influence, however, is not enough to keep my blood pressure in check as I learned about the Birthday Boy focus of both SportsCenter and First Take this morning. No, it's not surprising. And yes, I shouldn't get angry about it because there are certainly better things to do with my time.

Ah well. Priorities.

_Tim Tebow is a pile of turd, and that opinion has absolutely nothing to do with him being an overrated player or a member of a team I hate. In the end, even with all the ways that we can blame ESPN for buying into and shaping his hype, more mainstream (i.e. not sports) media outlets are also running with the Tebow slop-fest with remarkable vigor, almost as if ESPN's vision of "what's news" should be dictating content elsewhere. With the widespread coverage, much of which is being guided by his own PR machine, it all comes back to the man himself, and what he's willing to let himself become in the public eye.

I hear all the time how Tebow is a great guy and great teammate. This means nothing to me since I can't very well verify that personally, and since - nice guy or not - he has allowed himself to be branded into a colossal douchebag of a man. He has choices, and he routinely chooses the ones that put him in front of a camera more often than not. His stardom has turned Jets camp into a fucking circus, and even if we all love to revel in watching that situation slowly implode onto itself like a black hole of tainty goodness, the Tebow coverage there is nevertheless sickening on multiple levels.

And, of course, then there's this.

Anyone with a brain and an ounce of respect for Christianity looks at that picture and is ready to start throwing shit. I make no secret of the fact that my dad is an Episcopal priest and that even so I have a pretty snarky relationship with the concept of God and the Church. But this shit offends me. A guy who wears his faith on his sleeve, and who is inappropriately deified by the Christian right segment of his fanbase, makes the decision to hit a crucifiction-pose to run in a national magazine. It would be simply annoying and distasteful if this guy wasn't even a Christian, but his professed faith - part of what makes him beloved nationally - actually makes this worse. He's using religious iconography - and the seminal, John 3:16 moment of the Christ story, to boot - to further brand himself as Savior. As an Idol to be worshipped.

Maybe I have too much faith in a home-schooled Southern Baptist, but he should fucking know better.

This kind of Christ imagery has popped up in sports marketing before, of course - Lebron's "Witness" campaign being the most recent and pervasive. For Tebow, though, it's nothing more than callously co-opting his supposed faith in a way that should push everyone to seriously question whether this guy has any shred of integrity or whether he's simply willing to sell the purported core of his soul for another couple column inches in the next issue of the Daily News. With the company he keeps, of course, I think I already know the answer.

So, Happy Birthday, you piece of shit. Should you see the field in Week 1 - and we all hope you do, really - I'll be the one in Section 327 vocally praying for Mario Williams to knock your ass out.