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Tim Tebow: Praising the Player. Hating the Game.

Last Friday, I wrote a column stating that Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow deserved our pity. Statistically, over his previous three games, all losses, he had been beyond terrible. I pointed out that on Sunday, he would be facing the league’s number-one defense, a Pittsburgh Steelers squad so mean, to use an old saying, that they’d cry over Tebow’s mangled body just to get salt in his wounds. I thought Tebow and his awkward hand grenade throwing motion was headed for a long, sad offseason. I was dead wrong.

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Pity Tim Tebow. Seriously

The same Tim Tebow who led Denver to seven victories in eights games, revived a franchise, made the cover of Sports Illustrated, was mentioned as an MVP candidate, and inspired a nationally televised, hathos-drenched love-poem from NBC’s Bob Costas, is hanging onto his job by his fingernails. And for good reason.

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2011: The Year I Learned to Hate College Football

In a decade of sports writing, I've always used a very basic framework: don't reject sports, reclaim it. You stand your ground and never forget the fun, fellowship and artistry these games have the potential to produce. That’s been my framework, until now. This weekend marks the pinnacle of the college football season. For more than 25 years, since a young Ohio State wide receiver named Cris Carter broke every Rose Bowl record, I’ve tuned in. But not this weekend, and barring a major change, I’m never watching again.


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2011: When Sports Met the World

Pro athletes are told from the moment they first put on sneakers to check their politics at the locker-room door. But 2011 wasn’t an  ordinary year, on or off the playing field, from the Arab Spring to  Occupy USA, to the lockouts in the N.B.A. and the N.F.L., which had the effect of forcing athletes out of their SportsCenter comfort zone and  into talking about the real world. Below are a series of quotes from the  past year that showed a glimpse of a different kind of athlete, reflecting on and even shaping the world around them.

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