Chap Clark, vice provost for regional campuses and strategic projects at Fuller, has been quoted in two Associated Press stories this week—running in more than 200 media outlets—on Tim Tebow, the Denver Broncos starting quarterback whose consistent wins and overt displays of faith have made him a cultural sensation.
A December 12 article by AP sports columnist Jim Litke, “Irresistible Force Tebow Pushes NFL Around,†ran in more than 100 print, online, and broadcast media outlets, describing the phenomenon of Tebow’s stunning series of winning plays, growing fan base, and unashamed references to his Christian beliefs.
“[Tebow’s] great strength,” states Clark in the article, “is that even people who don’t agree with his faith at all play their best around him.”
A second article running in nearly 200 media outlets, “Tebow Mixes Faith and Football with No Apologies,†by AP pro football writer Arnie Stapleton, focused more specifically on Tebow’s faith. In that article, published on December 14, Dr. Clark commented that Tebow’s unorthodox route to success, after so many predicted he would fail as a quarterback, has set him and his faith apart, even from the many other athletes who talk about their religious principles.
“Tim has this ferocity as a competitor, but it’s still a game to him. He is consistently saying that football is not the center of life,” Clark said in that article.
Both articles ran in outlets ranging from local television news programs—affiliated with ABC, NBC, CBS, and Fox—to the Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle, Denver Post, Yahoo! Sports, and numerous others.