Super Bowl ad to transcend sports
Controversial ad poses question of whether an athlete can really be an advocate.
Devon Roehrich
Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Sports
There are some things we can all agree on. The men's black hockey jerseys are absolutely fantastic.
The breadsticks alone at the Olive Garden are worth the price of the entrée.
A 6 year-old could come up with a superior parking system than the one currently in place at this fine university.
And when it comes to sports, all we want is for these millionaire athletes to actually have an opinion on things, to allow themselves to speak openly about things that actually matter in the world that we live in.
This Sunday, in front of one the largest television audiences in human history, the most identifiable college football player of our generation, Tim Tebow, will take part in an ad supporting the elimination of legalized abortion.
He will appear in the commercial with his mother Pam, who was told by doctors to have an abortion when she was pregnant with Tim due to her becoming seriously ill while on a mission in the Philippines.
The backlash has been quite measurable. Several interest groups have ripped Tebow for taking such a stance on America's de facto national holiday. Many have pointed out that CBS has rejected advocacy ads in the past, therefore committing the crime of journalistic hypocrisy.
But let us take the political and religious motives out of this for a second. As you probably have heard by now, Tebow's status as a future NFL quarterback is anything but certain.
Scouts have been weary of his slow delivery and ball security, and his performance in the Senior Bowl last week only further damaged his draft status.
Knowing that his future may not be in the NFL, one would think he could use his celebrity to lock up as many endorsement deals as possible, raking in the Benjamins before people realize that he may be the second coming of Jason White or Eric Crouch (fantastic Heisman-winning QBs who have no niche in today's NFL system). But he has taken the narrow road, the road of substance over egotism, the highway of real change on an incredibly important issue over falling into the groupthink mentality of the modern athlete.
The breadsticks alone at the Olive Garden are worth the price of the entrée.
A 6 year-old could come up with a superior parking system than the one currently in place at this fine university.
And when it comes to sports, all we want is for these millionaire athletes to actually have an opinion on things, to allow themselves to speak openly about things that actually matter in the world that we live in.
This Sunday, in front of one the largest television audiences in human history, the most identifiable college football player of our generation, Tim Tebow, will take part in an ad supporting the elimination of legalized abortion.
He will appear in the commercial with his mother Pam, who was told by doctors to have an abortion when she was pregnant with Tim due to her becoming seriously ill while on a mission in the Philippines.
The backlash has been quite measurable. Several interest groups have ripped Tebow for taking such a stance on America's de facto national holiday. Many have pointed out that CBS has rejected advocacy ads in the past, therefore committing the crime of journalistic hypocrisy.
But let us take the political and religious motives out of this for a second. As you probably have heard by now, Tebow's status as a future NFL quarterback is anything but certain.
Scouts have been weary of his slow delivery and ball security, and his performance in the Senior Bowl last week only further damaged his draft status.
Knowing that his future may not be in the NFL, one would think he could use his celebrity to lock up as many endorsement deals as possible, raking in the Benjamins before people realize that he may be the second coming of Jason White or Eric Crouch (fantastic Heisman-winning QBs who have no niche in today's NFL system). But he has taken the narrow road, the road of substance over egotism, the highway of real change on an incredibly important issue over falling into the groupthink mentality of the modern athlete.
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