As IF Times

link Joe Soucheray: Tim Tebows fun to watch, but his critics are even more entertaining – TwinCities.com.

There’s an old joke that used to make the rounds up here in Canada which goes like this: A rookie sous chef gets a tour of a kitchen and he notices two pots which are boiling lobster.  He notices one pot has a lid on it and the other one doesn’t.  When he asks the head chef why this is so, the chef replies, “Well one pot is boiling American lobsters, we need a lid to keep them in.  The other one has Canadian lobsters, we don’t need lids on those because if one tries to climb out, the others pull him back in…”

This anecdote has ceased to become relevant based on what we’ve seen happen to culture in the U.S. over the past dozen or so years.  Whether you were a fan of it or not, the Americans as a people used to be known for their ‘can-do’ and optimistic attitude towards things, an attitude that by comparison, Canadians used to lack.  Now it seems to have swung the other way.

A guy comes along like Tim Tebow, who by all accounts is squeaky clean, devoutly religious, is pious and deferential and is essentially the poster boy for a Wheaties box.  Instead of universal adulation, he is disparaged, derided and openly hated by much of the popular media.  Apparently, his good guy persona is an irritating affront to many.  Of course opposing athletes will always be hated, as in the case of Derik Jeter by all non Yankee fans for example.

But the hatred for Tebow is not just because he plays for the opposition, it’s genuine contempt for him as a person.   At a time when many participants in professional sports are known as much for their records with the local DA as for their records on the playing field, Tebow doesn’t fit.   If only he had a history of wife beating, drug dealing, substance abuse, dog fighting or gun violence, he’d be a much more sympathetic figure.  He’d be like everyone else.

Instead, his lack of socially dysfunctional characteristics makes him a juicy target for noted intellectual giants such as Bill Maher and Charles Barkley.  In fact, contempt for Tebow comes mostly from those who don’t even watch football.  They come from that ideologically cynical sector of society that can’t stand the idea that a successful man is driven by faith rather than crass greed and an inflated sense of self worth.  Actually, it’s as amusing to observe the rabid foaming at the mouth of his critics as it is to watch Tebow perform miraculous plays.  In the old days, they used to root for the player to make heroic plays.  Times have changed.  They definitely don’t require lids on the U.S. pots anymore.