Don't You Dare Call His Tebowness A Student-Athlete

Ben Cohen|published: Sat 29th August, 14:15 2009

It's deliciously ironic when a flack greets reporters at a press conference and asks for questions for the so-called student-athletes, a descriptor about as accurate as calling Tim Tebow mortal. Hopefully, Tebow will soon rid the world of this nonsense.

After all, Tebow is hardly a student-athlete, and he readily admitted it to The New York Times yesterday. And what's wrong with that? I'm not a student-athlete. Chances are, you're not a student-athlete, and we're still not confined to some labor camp in Siberia. (At least I'm not, so far.) Tebow needs only one class to graduate, so he's taking something called a "senior seminar" — even he wasn't quite sure of its name — which meets once a week for one hour and is akin to Matt Leinart waltzing through ballroom dancing in his final semester.

Q. How close are you to graduation? A. I'm going to graduate in December.

Q. A light semester coming up, I assume? A. Yeah.

Q. Ballroom dancing like Matt Leinart? A. (laughs) Easier

Q. What do you have? A. I guess the class that I would have is senior seminar. It's one hour and one credit. It's on Tuesday afternoons and we have practice. I'm going to work around that with the professors. I'm going to do whatever my counselor sets up. I'm a football player this semester.

Before the NCAA gasps in wink-wink disapproval, let's put this in perspective: seniors at every school in the country slack off, especially if they have cushy jobs lined up. But not many of them sit down with reporters from The New York Times and, while gabbing about philanthropy, glaze over their academic pursuits. Good for Tebow for shunning this politically correct illusion bestowed upon athletes by the bowtied masses, because really, Tebow was never a student-athlete. He's been a football player every fall semester and every spring one, at that, and as a football player — as a battering ram who glides and drifts and smells of deodorant and wears a different color T-shirt than everyone else — Tebow has no need to dabble in Shakespeare and Sophocles. He's already a hero.

And by the way, Tebow's GPA is 3.72. In other news, some dweeby CompSci major in Gainesville racked up 900 total yards with Tebow in NCAA Football '10 last night. Go Gators! The Quad Q&A: Tim Tebow [NYT] Tebow not swamped with homework [Eagle Tribune]