TIM TEBOW: THE PERFECT DEODORANT FOR A SPORTS WORLD THAT REEKS

Sexual molestation, infidelity, murder, cheating, lying, lockouts
....it's all been part of a sports world that's turning into a one
giant cess pool. This guy is going to prison for selling drugs,
that guy got caught using performance-enhancing drugs and
blamed it on tainted meat, blah, blah, blah. It's getting rather
nauseating, isn't?

Then a guy like Tim Tebow, who is squeaky clean, comes along
and a lot of people seem hell bent on trying to dirty him up. The
Denver Broncos quarterback seems to be about the only thing
in the sports world that hasn't been stained by scandal, ego, and
greed. Tebow always says the right things, treats everyone with
respect, and now is helping his team win football games. Yet,
everyone wants to find the chinks in his armour. They make fun
of his "Tebowing", the act of going on one-knee to pray to somebody
up above. Opponents, media members, and fans everywhere make
fun of him.

There have been plenty of experts and analysts to mock him and
his ability as well. Tebow can't drop back, throw, read a defense,
or do anything except, well, win. He has won four of his five NFL
starts and has pumped new life into a team that had been on life-
support after the first five weeks of the season. John Fox, the Broncos
said that if Tebow had to play in a pro-style offense, "he'd be
screwed". How's that for confidence in your starting quarterback?

Why are people so quick to criticize Tebow? Is it because he
seems too good to be true? Do they hate the fact that he brings
religion into the stadium every week? Or do people hate the
fact that the former Florida Gator icon has a life that isn't as
quite as miserable as theirs? It's probably a combination of all
three.

Tebow is turning out to be Doug Flutie with two extra growth
sports. Like Flutie, he's a Heisman winning quarterback who
did superhuman things while he was in college. Flutie, like Tebow,
had plenty of haters, too. Most of them were NFL scouts who
said said Flutie was too short and couldn't play in an NFL-style
offense. After playing in the USFL in Canada, Flutie came
back to prove them all wrong. He had great flashes and won
some games for the Buffalo Bills before being replaced by
somebody who was bigger, stronger, and much better looking
when it came to playing quarterback.

That will happen to Tebow, eventually. His flaws when slinging
the football, might be too much to overcome. Teams will eventually
figure out a way to stop him in the last five minutes of the game,
and he'll eventually be replaced. It may be in the next three games or
the next three years, but he's not long for the NFL.

But right now, his teammates believe in him and Tebow is
proving that he can win, perhaps not play at high-level, but
win. He may be winning "ugly" but Tebow is winning, and
that's the bottom line in the NFL. However, his attitude,
charisma, and character is certainly refreshing. I've grown
tired of writing about liars, cheaters, and ego-driven millionaires.

JIM BOEHEIM IS A REAL MAN

We live in a society of front-runners and users. There are some
people we can't stand, but still befriend them because they can
help us get more money, a better job, or great tickets to the Super
Bowl. People will be friends with you until they deem you no
longer useful or helpful to them, or you become unpopular with
a certain crowd and it's bad for their image to be seen with you.
They'll only do the right thing if it's right for them and it keeps
them in good standing with the right people.

Last week, child abuse allegations were made against Syracuse
assistant basketball coach Bernie Fine. In the wake of the Penn
State mess, people have already convicted Fine of being a sexual
predator and friends have run away from him quicker than Usain
Bolt pulls away from the field in the 100 meter dash. In the court
of public opinion, Fine is a child molester, pervert, and someone
with serious problems. He may be exonerated down the road, but
his reputation has been ruined forever. There will always be the
uncomfortable stares and the people who turn the other way when
they see Fine coming. Jim Boeheim is not going to be one of them.

Boeheim, the Hall of Fame  basketball coach of the Orange, has
worked side-by-side with Fine for the last 36 years and has known
him for a half-century. When the world was throwing Fine into
the same cess pool as Jerry Sandusky, Boeheim stood up for his
friend and told anyone who would listen that he believed in
Fine's innocence.

“I have been friends with Coach Fine for 50 years," Boeheim
said last week. " And that buys a lot of loyalty from me and
it should."

Boeheim, unlike most people, doesn't believe loyalty is a
one-way street. He should be applauded for not turning
his back on a friend who dedicated his life to helping him
turn Syracuse into a national power. Beoheim should be praised
for not selling out a friend who made tremendmous and personal
sacrifices to help the team and athletes become the best it could
be. It's been said that you find out who your real friends are when
adversity strikes. Fine has a real friend in Boeheim.

A lot of coaches in Boeheim's position would have rinsed their
hands of Fine as quick as the allegations came down. Few of them
would want anything to do with a person who's being accused of
child molestation, after all, it's not good for their image and "legacies".

Critics and crisis management "experts" say that Boeheim is
"risking everything" in defending his friend.  Everything being
his job, reputation, and legacy. It's bold and refreshing to hear
Boeheim pretty much say, "to hell with those things." Boeheim
is not going to sell out a friend and is taking a stand in the face
of public criticism, believing in his friend and what he thinks
is right. And there are no shortage of people who have criticized
the stance Boeheim is taking.

"If you can get in trouble for supporting a friend you’ve known
for almost 50 years, I don’t want to live in that country,” Boeheim said
last week. “Is that clear? And yet people are saying stuff like that.
That’s sad. That’s a sad world. When you can’t be loyal to your
friends, I don’t like that world.” Neither do I.

TILLMAN AND BILL: FALLEN HEROES

I never knew Brian Bill or Pat Tilman but I admired them more than anyone I've ever met, outside
of my parents. Bill and Tilman took very different paths to the military, but tragically, both suffered
the same fate, dying as they fought for our freedom.

As the nation took a breath from the mind-blowing events at Penn State and paid tribute on Friday
to those who fought  and died while serving our country, I couldn't help but think of Bill and Tilman
and how they made the ultimate sacrifice for the United States.

A lot of people say they love our country, but if someone took a poll, it would probably come after money, family, sex,  Facebook, and before the IPad and the IPhone in the rankings of what we like
the most in our everyday lives. There are few people who would actually fight for our country and
do the things necessary to protect our freedom which we take for granted every  single day. Yes,
we do. Each of us takes our freedom for granted all the time. Oh, sure, there are moments when we appreciate it, like when those who  died fight for it, come home in a casket or an act of terrorism
is thwarted. It's sad, but not many of us can say that it's not true.

Tilman gave up millions that came his way from  playing in the NFL. But after 9/11, the former
Arizona Cardinals safety said, "football's not important to me, serving my  country is." He became
a Ranger and went on a few missions before he was killed by his own battalion in a dangerous
canyon in Afghanistan. It was sad, tragic, and made even worse because the government lied to
everybody at first,saying that Tilman was a hero and killed by enemy forces. But what Tilman did,
giving up the riches and the good life of the NFL, to serve our country should be admired. He
should be remembered and admired along with the others who fought and died in wars that tried
to rid evil and destruction

Brian Bill wasn't a former NFL player, but he was a man who was a great athlete and a person
who had accomplished so much. He was a triathlete, mountaineer, spoke French fluently and
aspired to be an astronaut. Bill became a Navy SEAL  and was a member of the elite Team Six.
He was bold, brave, and more courageous that most of us could only dream of being. Bill was
killed along with more than 25 other SEAL's when their helicopter they were traveling in, was
brought down by a rocket-propelled grenade in Afghanistan.

Tilman and Bill were in the prime of their lives with so much ahead of them. But they, like so many others, never made it back to home soil. It's so sad that we sometimes forget about the people who are still
fighting faceless enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan, in wars most of us really don't support anymore. It's
really sad that most people don't think of the dangers our troops experience everyday, many of them
not even old enough to legally drink yet, fighting to protect our freedom. Fighting for our freedom. That statement sometimes seems corny. But it is very real. Tilman and Bill are real heroes and I'll never forget
the sacrifice they, along with so many others, made for us and our freedom. That's what
I'm thinking about on this Memorial Day.