by Tim Tebow
In addition to the friends I made through church and sports, I made other friends through an organization Mom started, which she called First At Home, about twenty years ago. It started small—there weren’t many homeschool families at the time—but we had so many families that got involved in the years afterward that it became an integral part of the homeschooling culture. It involved participating together on a regular basis in various learning and recreational experiences. For example, we’d go on field trips as a homeschool group. So then we had all those new friends from other homeschooling homes that we got to know better and looked forward to being with, around Thanksgiving celebrations, and at numerous other activities.
For me, homeschooling helped keep my priorities in order and allowed me to work on the things that I wanted to accomplish at my own pace and on my own schedule. Later, in high school, if I had an opportunity to go on a recruiting visit to a college, I could take off on Friday and make up for it by doing more of the required work either ahead of time on Thursday or on Monday after I returned from the trip; and I never had to worry about missing a test. I would also schedule my workouts around my class schedule. I always could do everything I wanted to do athletically and academically because I was able to schedule things in accordance with the priorities that were built into me when I was growing up. And the neat thing was that I was able to do most everything I needed and wanted to do along the way, and that really helped me develop a sense of accomplishment.
It was during those growing-up days, when we were engaged in our games and chores around the farm, that I also had my first experience with the death of someone who was close to me.
Uncle Dick went to be with Jesus. He had health problems from emphysema and a childhood bout with polio, but I had never anticipated him actually dying. It was a sad occasion. We all loved him, and while we knew that he was now enjoying the rewards of heaven, we missed him and still do.
As sad as we were, we soon learned that Uncle Dick would continue to live on in a way that paid tribute to the great man that he was. Several years before Uncle Dick died, Dad was on a trip to the Philippines when he learned that an unwanted baby, whose mom died in childbirth, would be thrown in the river if someone did not take her. My dad’s staff members Bert and Ray Gauran took her and named her Queen.
Dad has always been very sensitive toward widows and orphans, who the Bible says repeatedly we are to care for. So, when Dad heard Queen’s story and realized how many children there were in the Philippines with similar stories, he went to the board of his organization, BTEA, with an idea to address the need of these orphans. He wanted to start an orphanage that would raise them. The board immediately embraced the idea, understanding the biblical mandate to help widows and orphans:
Pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.
JAMES 1:27
In 1992, BTEA founded the orphanage in the southernmost part of Mindanao, Philippines. It’s a relatively small orphanage, with just under fifty children, but it is making a large impact in those children’s lives, caring for them and teaching them about Jesus’s love for them. By God’s grace we have had seventeen of our orphans graduate from college.
Much like my father, Uncle Dick understood the importance of helping those who are less fortunate, and when he died, he left a large portion of his estate to support the orphanage in the Philippines, which my parents then renamed “Uncle Dick’s Home.” It is a home of joy, providing unconditional and never-ending love to so many who need it. Renaming it in honor of the man who showed that kind of love to us and to so many others seemed to be the perfect tribute. I thought they’d have those little bottles of Coke and assorted flavors of popsicles for the kids who were living there, but Mom and Dad said they were going to take a different route on the meals and snacks for the children in Uncle Dick’s Home.
I loved the idea, but I was still sad that he had died. There was certainly a hole left in our family with Uncle Dick’s passing, a hole that was even more pronounced when Thanksgiving and Christmas came around. That hole would never go away, but it didn’t take long for the newly renamed orphanage to become a vital part of our family. Through the wisdom of estate planning, Uncle Dick has had a great legacy of impacting many needy children.
For much of my youth, I played Pop Warner football at Lakeshore Athletic Association near where we lived on the west side of Jacksonville. Lakeshore is a stone’s throw from the St. Johns River but not near any lakes, as far as I could tell. It was a very strong and well-attended sports program that attracted a lot of top-flight competition and made me a better player. Initially I only played baseball at Normandy Little League and basketball in church leagues, but finally I wore my parents down with my begging and whining, and a few weeks before I turned eight, they finally let me play Pop Warner football.
The first week of football didn’t go all that well. I got sick every day at practice with headaches, dizziness, and nausea. I asked my mom if there was something that we could do or something that I could take, and while she allowed me to take something to calm my stomach and head after practice, she was clearly hesitant about making a habit of it.
At the end of that first week my parents sat me down. It was clear to them that if these symptoms didn’t stop soon, I would have to give up football. It was only a game, and they were not going to medicate me to play a game. My mom was particularly concerned, because she has dealt with Ménière’s disease all her life. It’s a condition of the inner ear that, for her, affects her balance. She wondered if I might have the same thing, especially since roller coasters, merry-go-rounds, and similar things have always made me ill.
Still, I didn’t want to give up football, but I’d learned that the scriptures make it clear we are to honor our mothers and fathers. My siblings and I were fortunate to have parents who made that easy to fulfill—at least we could see they deserved to be honored by us whether we always demonstrated it or not. But it wasn’t until later—when I wasn’t with them all the time—that I began to realize all the reasons, in addition to the instruction in God’s Word, that they deserved not only our respect and praise, but to be honored and loved. They cared for us, protected us, and nurtured us so that we could grow into the people God wants us to be. They guided us along the path on which they believe He had created us to walk. They did whatever it took to make sure following God’s wisdom and direction was the path we took.
Well, my mom prayed with me that evening. She and I knelt beside my bunk bed and prayed that God might take away whatever it was and heal me so I might be able to play football. If it was God’s will. That was always the standard for them, in anything they prayed for: if it was God’s will . . . they asked for it to be done. And for whatever reason you might wish to assign, after that night, I’ve never had another issue with my head while playing football.
Well, there was one issue. But that was much later.
Once I got over my initial sickness, the Lakeshore Athletic Association football program was a great place to grow up and compete. Not only did it give me my first experience at playing quarterback—the only position I’ve ever wanted to play—it also produced a lot of talent that flowed into the high schools all over the Jacksonville area and beyond. From my Pee Wee football team alone, we produced a number of Division I athletes, including guys who played for South Carolina, Louisville, Houston, West Virginia, and Florida. And there were others who might have made it that far except for falling by the wayside through low grades, drug use, or other problems that cut their athletic pursuits short.
After playing baseball for years at Normandy, at age eleven I was invited to play on a traveling baseball team, the Tidal Wave. Because they wanted us to sample and enjoy different sports and activities, my parents had always discouraged us from playing only one sport for the entire year; however, they did allow me to play on this traveling team. I played three or four season
s with them, and during that span we won hundreds of games, playing all over Florida and around the country. During the summers, we’d play maybe ten or eleven games a week—with two each Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. I remember many Sundays where we’d leave church and I would change into my uniform in the car as we drove to a game.
At various times during those years on the traveling team, I was invited to play for teams in other states as well. I remember a couple in particular: one in Georgia and one in Texas. Here we were, just kids playing baseball, and for the sake of winning games, these people were willing to fly me to different parts of the country to play for them. My dad squashed that idea before it ever had a chance to take off. He was concerned with the time it would take away from the family and school studies, and he also worried that my arm would get overworked if he wasn’t there to monitor my pitch count. He was a stickler for protecting our arms.
And, yes, he really did monitor my pitch count. After a great deal of talking with major league pitchers, Dad determined how much, in a game and in a week, I could throw without risking injury to my arm. One time in particular, Dad told our Tidal Wave coach, Matt Redding, that I had hit my pitch count. Before I’d joined the team, Dad and Coach Redding had already been good friends, which was probably why I was allowed to play on a traveling team in the first place, but this day, Dad was getting a bit upset with his friend, the Coach.
Dad walked over to him at one point and said, “Matt. He’s thrown enough.” He didn’t have to remind Coach about the terms for our participation on the team: only one pitching appearance per week, with a maximum of eighty-five pitches. Surprisingly, Coach didn’t immediately respond, and Dad continued.
“Matt, either go out there and take him out, now, or I will. And if I have to do it, then it’s the last time he’ll ever play for this team.”
No one would ever claim that God gave Dad the gift of subtlety or diplomacy, at least not when he feels strongly about something, and especially when he feels strongly about something that involves one of his children.
Coach took me out. That may be the only time that they disagreed on anything, which makes it so memorable; Coach was really good, and Dad trusted him with me.
My dad never coached us formally in a team setting because of international trips and his irregular schedule. What he did was spend lots of time with us, teaching us not only to hit, but also to throw. Apparently, some people have even commented of late on that throwing motion.
Dad’s fault.
He was not only focused on our arms, but also on our overall well-being. Eventually I felt that I’d taken working out with surgical tubing attached to doors as far as I wanted or could and had done push-ups and sit-ups, for hours, and I wanted to start on weights. My dad kept reminding me that Herschel Walker had turned out to be a pretty fair player with only push-ups and sit-ups, but it did little to dissuade me—I really wanted to start on weights.
“Not until you get your first pimple,” he would tell me. He was a health and human-performance major at Florida, and people in the athletic world had convinced my dad that there was no point in training with weights before puberty, when the body starts manufacturing enough testosterone to be able to effectively begin to build muscle through weight training. I had no reason to doubt him, but that didn’t stop me from asking. Over and over.
Finally, he gave in. He says it was because I had hit puberty, while my recollection is that it was just a bit earlier than that. Either way, I finally got a weight set that we kept in the barn. I think Mom felt like the barn would give the furniture and other items in the house a level of protection. That was all I had asked for as a Christmas present, and it was a gift that allowed me to change and improve my training regimen.
I kept push-ups and sit-ups in my routine, doing four hundred of each, every day. I also began to add weights and certain exercises with them, but Dad wouldn’t let me use any weight heavier than one with which I could do at least fifteen repetitions. He was still being cautious, not wanting me to be injured or somehow stunt my growth or otherwise negatively impact the proper development of bones, tendons, and the like. In the process, I think I built up as much in endurance as I did in strength. As I began adding strength later, I think that foundation of stamina served me well, which was an expected plus.
At some point, still in Little League, I believed and imagined that everyone around me was also trying to improve. In retrospect, I’m not really sure how much most kids were training at that age, but at the time, I was convinced everyone was working hard to get better.
And that’s when I adopted one of my mantras for getting stronger and better and for all my workouts:
Hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard.
Because I assumed that everyone was trying to get better, I began looking for ways that I could get an edge, an advantage that would serve me in competition. I would end up doing things above and beyond whatever was expected to get an edge. I also began working out at odd times of the day and night, thinking, I’ll bet there are no other kids in Jacksonville working out right now. Whether that was actually true didn’t really matter—what mattered to me was that I thought it was true. It was just another thing that motivated me to work longer and harder.
I’m sure that God made me in such a way that I was willing to work hard, but there was certainly a lot of parental encouragement and nurturing as well. From the earliest days I can remember, my parents always told me they believed God had big plans for me, even though they didn’t know exactly what they were. Mom used to quote her paraphrase of Isaiah 64:4 over and over to me,
We haven’t even seen a God like ours who acts on behalf of the one who waits for Him.
My dad would also reinforce that promise of God. For my whole life, he has told me that he and Mom have always prayed for me, and knew that God had a special plan for me. They told all their children the same thing. That’s true, of course, for me, for my brothers and sisters and for all of us, because God clearly has a plan for all of us. But my dad felt that somehow the plan God had laid out for me was going to involve a lot of visibility. He didn’t say it exactly like that but, rather, more like this:
“Maybe it’s through baseball or football, but somehow, some way, what we do in the Philippines to share Jesus with people, you’ll be able to do and share right here in America, in ways that we’d never be able to. I can’t walk into any high school to share the gospel, but you’ll be able to. I believe that God is preparing the way for that to happen.”
That’s a great blessing to give a child. To remind them, pray for them, and assure them that God has a great plan—in His terms and for His purposes—for their lives.
I tried to work as hard as possible in every area in order to live up to it. Waiting on the Lord, as referenced in the passage from Isaiah that my mom always quoted, doesn’t mean being complacent. It means understanding that He has a time and a plan, and that we’re not the ones in control. In the meantime, however, we need to strive to use our gifts and abilities fully and to the best of our ability for whatever He does have in store for us, whenever the time comes. I was beginning to see more clearly that God always has His hand on us—preparing us for His purposes.
And I began to see that as not only a great blessing and promise, but a great responsibility.
Chapter Five
A Fair Farewell
I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
—PHILIPPIANS 4:13, NKJV
After I’d been playing at Normandy and Lakeshore for a while, it came time for me to start playing for a school. There was only one that interested me: Jacksonville Trinity Christian Academy.
I was the third in our family to play sports at Trinity Christian. Since we were all homeschooled, we needed a way and place to participate in sports, and Trinity had provided that and had been a good home for us for years. As if the three of us playing wasn’t enough, for years my dad had been videotaping every one of Trinity’s games f
or the coaches’ use, so it really was a family legacy that we were building at Trinity. And we continued to build it when I, as the third Tebow boy, began playing quarterback on Trinity’s JV football team in the eighth grade.
We were undefeated during my eighth-grade year, and I was called up to the varsity team at the end of that season. (The varsity season lasts longer.) I didn’t play at all that year on the varsity, however, but was biding my time for ninth grade.
After the season ended, I continued to train and lift as much as I could, but it wasn’t until I was preparing for my freshman-year season at Trinity that I realized how much progress I’d been making. Before going into ninth grade, I went to a youth camp that featured, among other events, an arm-wrestling competition. Robby was back from college and had gone along to serve as a counselor for the camp, while Peter and I were there as campers.
That competition was one of the moments when I realized that all my extra hard work was beginning to pay off, providing me with an advantage I hadn’t planned for. It was no surprise that Robby, as a college football player, made the finals at a high school camp, but as someone about to be a freshman, I certainly didn’t expect to make it. Sure enough, though, I found myself in the finals against my brother. Of all people, my big brother.
The finals of the arm-wrestling competition? Me, about to be a freshman in high school, against my brother Robby, a college football player, and six years older than me.
Funny, I just can’t remember who won.
It was apparent, though, that all the additional training I’d been doing was having a real and noticeable impact on my strength. Seeing that progress and the results of it in different settings made me even more motivated to work hard.
Heading into that first year of high school football, we went on a church-planned weekend called the “Burly Man Retreat,” in Hilliard, Florida, located about thirty minutes north of Jacksonville and just inside the Florida–Georgia border. The events of that weekend have become the stuff of family legend and probably illustrate as well as anything just how competitive I am.