Interview after Interview, New York Knick’s Jeremy Lin attributed his recent success to Christianity—his faith—and to Jesus Christ, the savior of his faith.
Jeremy Lin is a devout Christian. We get it.
But we might not get the ramifications of his recent success. For instance, who does Jeremy Lin resemble in sports given his recent success?
The answer is right in front of us. Jeremy Lin resembles Denver Bronco’s Quarterback, Tim Tebow.
These players have a lot in common. First, they both credit Christianity for their success in professional sports. Second, their teams undermined their value, choosing to not give them a chance until an injury arose.
The last commonality will be explained with a question. Who is responsible for framing Jeremy Lin’s public image if he continues his success?
The answer: ESPN. The network biasedly covers East Coast sports—especially, New York sports. They recently started coining Lin’s recent performances as “Lin-sanity.”
How is ESPN’s coverage of Jeremy Lin similar to Tim Tebow? Tebow was relentlessly covered by the media during his college years, and still receives the same overblown attention as an NFL player.
If you are wondering who is responsible for Tebow’s overblown coverage, that answer is also in front of us: ESPN. This network will cover Jeremy Lin like Tim Tebow, if Lin continues outperforming in New York.
To put it simply, Jeremy Lin could be the NBA’s version of Tim Tebow this season, because of ESPN and their common characteristics.
I just hope “Lin-sanity” does not become a word, like “Tebowing.”
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David Ka Wai Pan is your typical Asian American, confused about his identity but determined to learn more about it. How? By writing and posting articles here at AsianWeek. 
While Lin does represent another successful Professional athlete with a faith-focus, perhaps far more important in what separates Lin from Tebow is the fact that he is also inherently serving to break down generations of bigotry and stereotypes regarding Asian-American athletes.
Check out this excellent article on that topic: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/philosophicalfragments/2012/02/06/jeremy-lin-and-the-soft-bigotry-of-low-expectations/
Wow. WOW !! Great article Jeff. Thanks for sharing.
-Sam
I counter by saying that Tim Tebow is also breaking down barriers for children who are home-school and ex-patriots who are born outside the country, but I recognize that because of his skin color, no one sees this representation.
No unlike Tebow Lin is playing his natural position.
Lin is more like Jackie Robinson or Sidney Poitier facing stereotypes.
As for his Christianity, coming from Lin it seems somehow less ominous or controversial. This is probably because the entire issue with Christianity in this country has to do with a fear of projected power. From a physically imposing Southern Caucasian male, that threat seems a legitimate cadence. From Lin, any such threat seems muted. More choir boy than crusader.
GO LIN!
The next Steve Nash gotta love the kid saving the Knicks face and rescuing a coaching career. All for peanuts in comparison to the people around him.
Neither Tim Tebow or Jeremy Lin “credit Christianity for their success in professional sports.” Rather, they just want to thank God for giving them the ability/opportunity to do what they do. Tebow has gone on the record saying that he doesn’t think God cares/influences the results of sporting events. They’re also not the only athletes who do it, Tebow is just the “hot name” to drop on this subject. Neither of them is getting media attention because of their religious affiliation. Tebow was winning games under the most absurd of circumstances. Lin is playing well, despite being a repeat castaway just this season alone. Anybody coming out of nowhere to score 50+ points in two games is going to make the news.
Claiming that their teams “undermined” their ability is a stretch as well. That implies that the players were talented and the teams intentionally tried to make them look bad. Then you say that Jeremy Lin is “outperforming.” Which implies that he isn’t as good as he’s playing. Which one is it?
In today’s media culture, nobody is responsible for the “framing” of Jeremy Lin’s public image except for Jeremy Lin. If not ESPN, somebody would still write about him, twitter would explode, people like you would write about him. The Asian community, in my experience, have always loved basketball as a sport and always tried to support any Asian player that made it into the NBA. Jeremy is the first that Asian Americans can claim as their own. That’s why he’s blowing up. Because there are Asian Americans everywhere and as soon as a positive story appears, we all jump on the bandwagon. ESPN is just doing what gets them readership and revenue.
Tebow is a compelling story for many people. And hopefully Lin will be the same.
Sounds like someone might have an issue with Christians who openly edify.
Irony is, I bet TIm Tebow has spent more time in Asia than Lin.
I’ll cheer for Lin, and as a Denverite, much easier to do since Carmelo is out.
I also like: Jeremy-nia.
Hey All – I wanted to share this cool Lin story with you.. Jeremy Lin’s HS coach at Paolo Alto knew that Lin would blow up like this one day, and bought the URL “Linsanity.com” years ago. Now he is selling great Jeremy Lin shirts to support his old player. Its pretty cool.
How about comparing Lin to Victor Cruz? Both were undrafted and played in schools not seen as traditional powerhouses for sports, went basically unnoticed in their rookie year, reached record breaking performances; and the ever growing puns on Lin’s name (LINsanity, LINsane, LINspiration, etc) and salsa dancing lessons from Cruz surely beats the short-fated craze that surrounded “Tebowing”…
Gwen Knapp’s take, featured in the Chronicle two days ago:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/15/SP0S1N845D.DTL