Tim Tebow and the First Amendment

Tim Tebow made his much-anticipated NFL debut today...and managed to gain two yards on two carries. Nothing to brag about, but he wasn't going to play much anyway. I was pretty shocked at the smattering of "boos" coming from Jacksonville fans. Sure the Broncos moved ahead of Jacksonville in the draft to select Tebow, but he's the hometown hero. Then again, the fans also booed the Jaguars going into halftime. I did some research and found two interesting Tebow-related tidbits. First, he now has a website: www.timtebow.com. On there, you can get a full bio, list of accomplishments, links to his Twitter and Facebook, pictures, and the Broncos complete schedule. The most interesting thing I found was Tebow's new favorite message: GB2. It stands for "God Bless + Go Broncos."

The other piece I found is about the so-called "Tim Tebow" rule, which the NCAA enacted for this season. It bans players from putting anything on their eye-black. Reggie Bush put "619" as a shout out to his hometown of San Diego. Tebow was famous for putting Bible verses on his eye-black. Todd Kaufmann, featured columnist for the Bleacher Report, made the argument that the NCAA is blatantly violating the First Amendment. As journalists, the First Amendment is our "bible." It lets us know what we can and cannot write about. So anytime the First Amendment and sports come into play, guaranteed sports columnists will have an opinion. I agree with Kaufmann's argument that the NCAA is violating the First Amendment. Never did Tebow say "look up this verse" or "you better believe what this verse says." It was simply his homage to his faith, a major part of his life. The NCAA does not have the authority to make such an overarching ban. Should certain schools decide to ban messages on eye-black, that is another story. But if the NCAA feels so inclined to control athletes' symbolic speech, why don't they also go after athletes' Twitter accounts or Facebook statuses? I'm baffled by the NCAA's actions.

Here is the link to Kaufmann's article.

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/346014-tim-tebow-rule-the-ncaa-bans-eye-black-messages