PROUD TO BE A GATOR!!
This, from USA TODAY is too good to pass up:
SEC preview: Florida's odd couple give Gators bite
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"Odd couple," coach Urban Meyer says.
Tebow, quarterback for the defending national champions, is the leader on offense. Joiner, a team captain, must guide a defense with nine new starters. But beyond their passion for the game, they seemingly have little in common: one who seems too good to be true, the other who was once kicked off the team.
"I just thought they'd be a good influence around each other," Meyer says.
Tebow was born in the Philippines, where his family runs a mission and an orphanage. When the family moved to Jacksonville in 1990, his father, Bob, continued to run the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association. He has a staff of 40 running the mission and the orphanage of 50 children.
All the Tebows have made numerous trips to the Philippines on missions. "It's taught me that there are more important things than football," Tim Tebow says of his three trips and his experience preaching in schools, hospitals, marketplaces and prisons in the Philippines. "Their backgrounds are unbelievably heartbreaking. At the same time, these kids are 10 times more happy than most of Americans here. It gives you a different perspective."
Since Tebow arrived in Gainesville, he has received about 200 speaking requests across the country, from prisons to Boy Scouts. At two prisons where he spoke this offseason, Tebow says 195 inmates came forward and decided they wanted to change their lives and "receive Jesus Christ."
When his football career is over, he would like to follow his father in the ministry and work with children.
A framed poem in his off-campus apartment reads: "Little eyes are watching you." It's a reminder that children look up to him, just as he admired Danny Wuerffel, the former Gators quarterback who runs a ministry and school in New Orleans. "I think a lot of guys just take it for granted with the attitude of because I'm a football player, I'm special, I can do whatever I want," Tebow says. "Athletes influence so many people whether they realize it or not."
If Tebow seems too be good to be true, those who know him best say, "It's true." "He is that nice of a guy. He is that good of a guy," offensive coordinator Dan Mullen says.
Meyer at first was skeptical.
When he initially met Tebow, he wondered, "It can't be that good. Where's the chink in the armor? Your dad's a missionary and your mom's a teacher of five children at home. (All the Tebows were home-schooled.) C'mon, say a bad word or something. But they are very real people. It's legit. It really is."
Second chance for Joiner
Not long after Meyer arrived at Florida two seasons ago, Joiner quickly got Meyer's attention for all the wrong reasons. In March 2005, he was charged with driving without a valid license. Beyond that, in Meyer-speak, he wasn't "living his life right." As a result, Joiner was kicked off the team.
Then Meyer talked to his wife, Shelley. "I had to remind Urban that we hadn't had a chance with this kid yet and remind him why we're doing this job," Shelley Meyer says.
"We're not only doing this job to win games. We have to win games to keep our jobs, but we're more about making kids family and helping them in any way. If we turn them out without giving them a chance to at least work with us, I knew we would regret it."
An hour later, Joiner was back on the team.
In Meyer's view, discipline is education and correction. Meyer began calling Joiner every day; Joiner had to call Meyer at certain times as well. "He gave me a hard time. He made it uncomfortable," Joiner says.
Joiner grew up in Haines City, Fla. When his parents, Debra and Jesse, weren't around — his mother still works two jobs to pay the bills — sports kept him out of trouble.
"I was kinda raised a little bit by one of my coaches when I was younger," Joiner says.
The Meyers tend to adopt the players who need them the most. Joiner went to church with the Meyers, ate at their house and became close to their three kids.
Still, there continued to be issues. That's when Shelley stepped in again last year. Trained as a psychiatric nurse, Shelley has long been the voice in Meyer's ear when a player gets in trouble.
Last year, Joiner was at the Meyers' house watching movies with the family when Meyer turned off the TV and said to his wife and Joiner, "You two need to talk."
"We had to convince him to give up certain things, and it's hard to give up people and things," Shelley says.
She became more involved in his life. Joiner had her cellphone number, and she text-messaged him twice a week. The Meyers began to see a change at the end of last season. Then this spring, Joiner and Tebow moved in together.
Keeping each other balanced
The No. 3 Gators' chances of contending for a conference title and another national title rest on their shoulder pads.
When the pressure intensifies this fall for Tebow, Joiner's outgoing personality and sense of humor might help keep the barometer steady. The frenzy around Tebow began to build after a documentary, The Chosen One, aired on ESPN chronicling his senior year in high school in 2005.
Though Tebow was Chris Leak's backup last season, he was the most popular guy on the team. Last fall, when autograph seekers gathered outside his dorm room, school officials had to call campus security.
A column in the school newspaper last week was headlined, "Tim Tebow makes life for UF men frustrating" and detailed, with great lament, Tebow's good looks, position as star quarterback, good grades, deep faith and modesty. "So where does this leave us 'normal' guys?" the sophomore writer asked. "Screwed, that's where."
After practices, Mullen becomes bad cop, shepherding Tebow through the autograph seekers.
"I just hope he lives up to the hype because he's never started a college game yet," Mullen says.
Meyer found a chink in Tebow's armor last year when Tebow expressed his frustration with teammates who weren't as committed.
Meyer's response: "Welcome to life in the big city, pal. You only have to deal with that for the next 60 years of your life."
When Tebow would say to Meyer that a certain position group or player needed more heart, Meyer would respond, "If you're the QB, don't tell me the problem. Tell me how you're going to fix the problem."
This summer, Joiner has coaxed Tebow to join him at pool parties at off-campus apartments, though Tebow prefers to hang out in small groups with friends. The roommates spend most of their limited free time catching up on episodes of Prison Break or Entourage.
"Tony is maybe loosening Tim up about things and making him laugh," Mullen says. "It's OK to be a college student every once in a while and enjoy things."
Sunday routine
On Sundays at noon, Tebow and Joiner hold Bible study at their apartment for friends and teammates. "It's turned into a fun thing," Tebow says. "We have service and then hang out … or sit around and talk."
Tebow usually reads a Bible passage and then relates the message to everyday life.
"He lives his faith every day," Joiner says. "It's not a lie with him, and he tries to instill it, not force it upon you. He's given me a better understanding."
Though Meyer calls Joiner "a work in progress," he is enormously proud of how far Joiner has come.
"How do I feel? It's no different than if my son ever becomes a captain someday, that's how close we are," Meyer says. "Two years ago, he was dismissed. Now he's going to graduate, be the captain of this football team and go to the NFL."
After a difficult offseason in which five players, all redshirt freshmen or sophomores, were arrested in incidents ranging from possession of marijuana to fighting to firing a semiautomatic rifle in public, stories like Joiner's, which hadn't been made public, shows second chances can pay off.
Last Sunday during the team's Fan Day, the Gators held a "Mom's Brunch" for the players' mothers and the coaches' wives.
Each mother merely introduced herself, but when it was Debra Joiner's turn, she launched into an impromptu story about how the Florida program changed her son's life.
"If you want your son to be loved and taken care of, he needs to be with this staff," Debra Joiner told the crowd, according to Shelley Meyer.
"If your son is struggling, this coaching staff is going to help them."
After an emotional few minutes, the entire room was in tears.
Shelley Meyer's eyes get watery when she talks about how far Tony Joiner has come.
"Now he's got Timmy," she says.
She still text-messages Joiner weekly, but now her messages read, "I'm so proud of you" or "You're such a leader."
The team's two leaders, one on offense, one on defense, are talking about the more pressing topic of the moment: the cereal bowls in the sink, threatening to take over the entire apartment.
"Right now there are 15 boxes of cereal in our apartment," Joiner says. "He'll eat two boxes a day."
"I love cereal," Tebow says with a contented smile.
"Anything that involves milk," Joiner says.
"He has so many TV dinners, he took the ice tray out to put more TV dinners in," Tebow counters.
Then the conversation turns to Joiner's own food addiction: Cup o' Noodles soup.
"I never even heard of them before," Tebow says. "Tony gave me some Cup o' Noodles. They're pretty good."
And on it goes, roommates, with as much in common as Apple Jacks and Salisbury steak, finding plenty of common ground.
posted by Trader Rick @ 3:12 PM
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