Maybe it’s not a camera phone at all, maybe someone hooked up a JVC Slim Cam to a word processor and let it be struck by lightning until it got Internet.

You might have to turn down the volume before you hit play, but don’t let it lessen the incredible athletic accomplishment of leaper Justin Bethel, a six-foot defensive back from Presbyterian College. Bethel jumped a reported 39.5 inches at the combine, and while the jump isn’t technically the “60-inch vertical leap” you’ll see it advertised as elsewhere, it’s still a guy setting up a shorter man’s height in boxes and flat-footing it to the top.

And hey, it might not help him in his career, it’s at least inspired a level of discussion online ranging from “you are an angel I met your dad and I love you” to “chris chase needs to be fired”. That’s a true sign that you’ve made it.

[h/t poor Chris Chase at Shutdown Corner]

Remember that STFU incident at the NFL combine involving Tim Tebow? Oh, how we laughed. But yeah, leave it to Billy Buzzkill to come out and tell the world, emphatically even, that the story wasn’t true. But to be fair, a lot of people say the same thing about the Ressurection.

“Not one single word of it is true,” Tebow told me.

“One of the number one things for me is being someone of character and when I say something people can take it to the bank,” Tebow said. “That story is absolutely not true.”

Tebow then named several of the other players who were in the room, and he invited me to check his version with each of them. –Pro Florio Talk.

Florio later indicated that his source reiterated his side of the story. So it’s Tim Tebow’s word against some nameless goon that hangs out with Mike Florio. Who to believe? I haven’t been this confused since I asked for driving directions near the pier. Trannies hang out at the pier, right? That’s where I was going with that…

UPDATE: Tebow is personally denying that the incident ever took place.

A fun story (fun for us, anyway) has finally made its way out of the NFL combine, one involving Tim Tebow and the Wonderlic, that timed test that all NFL prospects are asked to take at the combine. Tebow took the test, as everyone else did, with a small group of other prospects that didn’t really know each other.

Per a league source, after the person administering the test to Tebow’s group had finished, Tebow made a request that the players bow their heads in prayer before taking the 50-question exam.

Said one of the other players in response: “Shut the f–k up.” Others players in the room then laughed. –PFT.

Come on, guys. Tebow was just trying to make sure that you got into heaven! That leadership! Of course, his leadership was trumped by the STFU guy, who basically won over the room with a single phrase. Just wait until the 2012 season, where Goodell will give Tebow a distinct advantage by mandating that all game balls be constructed from Filipino foreskin. No, I can’t write a Tebow post without bringing that up. Thanks for asking, though. Read the rest of this entry »

Darrell Waltrip is just a good ole boy…never meaning no harm…and someday, the mountains might get him, but until then, he’d be doing well to not leave his keys in an unlocked car at an airport.

Waltrip returned to the private Nashville airport after the NASCAR race in Las Vegas to find his black Lexus SUV gone. The only black SUV in the parking lot? A Mercedes. He asked the folks at the airport what happened to his car. They all looked at each other sheepishly.

“They turned to me and said, ‘Tim Tebow has your car,’” Waltrip said in a telephone interview. “I said, ‘What is he doing with my car? I didn’t tell him he could take my car.’ The guys said, ‘We thought you told him he could drive your car.’ I know the guy, but I’ve never met the man. I didn’t tell him he could take my car.” –Orlando Sentinel, via Dan Levy/Sporting Blog.

It was actually Tim Tebow’s agent, Jim Denton of D1 Sports, that took the SUV. Whatever. We don’t do agent photo edits around here. Unless Jim Denton happens to bear any sort of resemblance to Lobster Dog, in which case, yeah, we totally meant to do that.

“Leadership” is the new “poise.” As much as the media used the latter to describe Jets rookie quarterback Mark Sanchez, expect heaping servings of the former to be ladled upon Tim Tebow. Tebow is that once-in-a-generation college quarterback who seems to be able to impress the NFL’s evaluators with everything he does, with the glaring exception of throwing a football. And now the rumblings of Tebow carving out his pro football future someplace, anyplace, but under center are starting to grow more nuanced.

Whether he can effectively overhaul his pitcher-like, long delivery remains a big question that has left the vast majority of evaluators skeptical, but he left no questions about his intelligence, determination or intangibles, carrying himself like a pro’s pro. And some evaluators were quietly enthused about his potential as an H-back after leaping 38 1/2 inches, clocking in the low 4.7s in the 40-yard dash and producing a blistering 6.66-second 3-cone time. –Nolan Nawrocki, PFW/Yahoo! Sports.

Scouts like Tebow’s cones…times. Tebow really is that butterfaced girl at the party that’s just slammin’ in every way except from the neck up, except in that one vital area where failure just isn’t an option. Of course, if you regularly use “slammin’” to describe the fairer sex, you’re probably shouldn’t be too picky.

Rich Eisen of NFL Network has an annual tradition of running the 40-yard dash, one that his colleagues and viewers seem to have a lot of fun with. As mentioned earlier by Dan Levy, Eisen ran a personal best of 6.25 seconds, which fell short of his sub-six-seconds goal. The last time I ran the 40 was in 2005, without a warmup, and it was 8.2 seconds. But to be fair, I was running it at night. And I’m Caucasian. And fat. Did I mention the Caucasian part? See the whole video here at NFL.com. Or don’t.