The Heisman winner in 2007 did it again. Reporters couldn’t believe what they heard, and were speechless--How to leave reporters speechless. University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow, who engineered his winning the Heisman, and two national championships, actually spoke the “V” word. To the accompanying reporters’ shock, he said he was a “virgin”, and would remain so until marriage.

Tim Tebow had originally been conceived by Pam Tebow who had actually gone into a coma from contracting amoebic dysentery during her pregnancy. Doctors told Pam she needed to abort because the strong medications she took may have caused irreversible damage to Tim. She refused to abort, and later at Florida Tim won the Heisman.

Any college football fan would know about Tim Tebow, the muscular Christian who plays quarterback for the Florida Gators. A more descriptive story by Austin Murphy in Sports Illustrated is in this feature about Tebow, which describes his history much better.

One has to wonder what would have happened if Tim was aborted 20 years ago as the doctors recommended. Certainly Florida would have not gained a Heisman winner, or likely two national championships. Besides all the football records lately built up by the Gators, the team led by Tebow, is breaking records with community service hours and work with the poor and the needy. So much so, that the head football coach decided it was time for him to sign up as well.

We know that all those people, if they had not been affected by Tebow in the Florida prisons, would be stealing, killing, and certainly having more abortions. They would be passing those traits on directly to their kids--at least the ones who hadn’t been aborted.

All this is likely true for his affect on the thousands of Philippinos he encountered. What about the hundreds of players his football coach will affect during his continued tenure as head coach? And certainly the thousands of kids Tim has affected from his announcement of virginity until marriage. It shouldn’t even be discussed the lives that will be saved by those kids deciding not to abort, and deciding to wait until marriage for sex. It’s obvious more abortions will be eliminated by that action alone.

Even the South Florida Sun Sentinel lately got into the fray by announcing this real-live football star was in their midst. Their words affected people. Those people affected other people. Even reading this column might affect you.

Evidently from the SI article, it seems as though with Tebow’s past missionary, prison, and future NFL work, the football phase of his life seems to be merely a means to a greater end. How many other unknown heroes have done the same thing? One thing is certain - you’ll never hear our president say the same thing about abortion or chastity in marriage. Maybe Tebow’s final senior year the Heisman will come knocking on his door one more time.

It seems as though we’ve just received a breath of fresh air…

Kevin Roeten