The New World Order and a familiar face haunts me
It is not very often when I muse on the Civil War that I do it from a Northern perspective.
But this must be the way the Yankees felt after Chancellorsville when the other guys lost Stonewall Jackson.
For the first time in a long time, the Gator Nation will be going to battle without THE field general of all field generals, Tim Tebow. It’s not the end of the world in Gainesville, not by a long shot. You still have the coaching equivalent of Robert E. Lee, pending chest pains or some offer that can’t be refused.
The troops are still excellent, the cause still seems as sacred and the spirits are still high…but it is not the same as it was. Lee was calling the shots, the troops were excellent and spirits were high at Gettysburg, too, but Jackson had left the scene and all of a sudden the Army of Northern Virginia was beatable.
When Stonewall Jackson took the field it wasn’t. Tebow was the same kind of “get er done when the guns start firing, always finds a way” guy. And now he’s gone.
They mourned Jackson in Richmond, while the people of Boston celebrated.
For possibly the first time in my life, I can relate to Boston.
While taking a break from the Florida heat, hitting some golf balls in the high country and hanging out where the bears live, I took part in a Relay for Life walk. It was at a Steamboat Springs high school, walking the track around the football field in a chilly breeze — on a football field in what we used to call football weather.
You can’t help but start to think about the Great Game under circumstances like that. And for the first August in three or four years, I was actually able to smile about one part of it — no Tebow. I’m as glad to see him gone as the Gator faithful were to see him on the field.
This might not change my personal fortunes a great deal. From all indications, my Volunteers of Tennessee are going to have their hands full with Vanderbilt and whomever they schedule for homecoming — some folks are saying breaking .500 might be dreaming.
But even if we are out of it, without HIM on the field, you can be beaten by SOMEBODY. That is reason enough to celebrate for me.
It was in this frame of mind that I walked out to pick up a local paper here in Breckenridge, just to see if there was any college football news or predictions. They had the Denver Post and the Summit Daily News and I grabbed both, pulled on a sweatshirt for the football weather outside, poured a hot cup of coffee and went out onto the balcony.
And guess who I met….
Tim Tebow grinning out from both front pages. He had just arrived at Broncos camp and it was only slightly less jubilant than MacArthur wading ashore in the Philippines. A feature story about his contract to advertise underwear got more space than any of several Armageddon-like world news stories. Thousands showed up at the field to watch him show up. Radio talk shows have callers asking about the possibility of attending photo shoots for the underwear ads.
The callers are men.
Tim Tebow arriving is bigger news than the Taliban, the oil spill and the Little Beaver Bike Trail being washed out by rain. Guys who watch football want to see him in tighty whiteys. Worse yet, all my friends at Aspen, Snowmass, Steamboat, Beaver Creek, Telluride, Crested Butte, Winter Park and the other ski resorts I frequent in Colorado are ALL Broncos fans.
It kind of took a little of the enthusiasm for football season out of me, so I moved my mind off to the other great sport that is coming soon. Snow skiing.
I think this year I will go to Montana…or some place even further from Denver.
And I dang sure won’t be wearing any Jockey underwear.
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