Tebow always finds way to fit in

It wasn't working.

The team wasn't scoring and, despite a tradition of success in the program, it wasn't winning games. Two losses to start the season? Practically unheard of.

So the coach made a drastic change. He tore up the offensive playbook he'd been using for years and installed a new scheme. It was a spread offense that relied on the athleticism and intelligence of the quarterback.

That quarterback was Tim Tebow, although at the time everyone just called him Timmy. He was 11 years old.

"I was trying to make him fit into a system that really wasn't for him," said David Hess, who coached that Lakeshore Renegades youth team in Jacksonville, Fla. "So we designed plays just for him that we used. Then we went on a run, wound up going to the regional championship . . . As a youth coach and a high school coach, you have to use the talents that you're given."

No one ever has denied the talents Tebow possesses. But since almost the first moment he buckled a chinstrap, what no one can seem to agree on is how best to utilize them.

Coaches have struggled to harness Tebow's abilities throughout high school, college and in the NFL. Now the newest team to attempt to figure out how to squeeze the square-pegged quarterback into the round hole of the position as it has come to be defined is the Jets.

The advice to the Jets from coaches who found success with Tebow at the helm: Let Tim be Tim.

Craig Howard followed Hess in recognizing that. Tebow began his high school career at Trinity Christian Academy and won a state championship as a freshman. But he played nose tackle and the coach, Verlon Dorminey, saw Tebow as a linebacker and tight end because of his size.

In his book, "Through My Eyes," Tebow described it as "position by stereotype" and said he wanted to be a quarterback so much that his family -- which was home-schooling him -- rented an apartment in another area of Jacksonville just to establish a residence that allowed him to play at Nease High School. That's where Howard had just taken the job as head coach and wanted to install the spread offense.

"He wanted to be in that offense and he was the perfect quarterback to do that with," Howard said. "The program we went into was a doormat. We were playing everybody's homecoming game. And by his senior year we were state champions."

The jump to the next level was met with more doubt about how he would fit in. Tebow was highly recruited out of high school, but many schools wanted him to change positions.

"People would say to me, 'He can't do what he did in high school in the SEC, they're just too big and too fast [on defense],' " said Howard, who now coaches at Southern Oregon University. "I said, 'I think he can.' And he did. He's been questioned his entire life as an athlete and I don't know why."

One of those who didn't question Tebow was Dan Mullen, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Florida for Tebow's first three seasons. Together -- and with head coach Urban Meyer -- they won two national championships and a Heisman Trophy.

"Watching him on film in high school, you could see that he could do other things," said Mullen, who became head coach at Mississippi State after Tebow's junior season at Florida.

Mullen kept him at quarterback and, when Tebow was a true freshman, used him much the same way the Jets have said they plan to. Tebow would come in with his own package of plays to spell starter Chris Leak, who played the majority of the snaps that season. Florida won the national championship, beating Ohio State, 41-14, in the BCS title game. Tebow threw for a touchdown and ran for another score against the Buckeyes.

"You need to build around the strengths of the players you have," Mullen said. "If you build around the strengths of Tim, you're going to be pretty successful."

Tebow has been successful at every level at which he's played. Even last year, although he lost four of his last five starts with the Denver Broncos and they eventually decided they'd be better off with Peyton Manning at quarterback, he helped Denver win a playoff game -- on Tebow's 80-yard touchdown pass on the first play of overtime.

It's not just the athleticism that leads to that success. In youth football, Hess said, 11-year-old Tebow could throw a football 50 yards in the air from his knees in a drill to help quarterbacks refine their throwing motion ("Everybody laughs about his form," Hess chuckled, "and I guess I have to take some of the blame there"). But Tebow had more than just a strong arm. Hess allowed him to audible and change plays at the line of scrimmage -- at the age of 11 -- depending on how the defense lined up.

Howard recalled Tebow suffering a broken leg as a high school sophomore . . . and staying in the game. "It wasn't a crack, it was a definite broken leg with a jagged bone," Howard said. "He's a warrior, I'll tell you. Right then I knew he was the toughest son of a gun I'd ever seen in my life."

He also was an inspirational leader. His passionate speech to the media after a loss to Mississippi in September 2008 may be the most memorable example of that. Tebow promised fans that he and the Gators would use the loss as motivation to play harder. Florida didn't lose another game that season, beating Oklahoma, 24-14, for the BCS national title. Meyer had the speech engraved on a plaque and it's now displayed outside the school's football facility.

Tebow has been talking that way for most of his life.

"He always gave the pregame speech to get you riled up and ready to play," said Mario Butler, a teammate at Nease High School and now a cornerback for the Cowboys. "That's not common in high school. Usually it comes from the coaches and not the players . . . His speeches would always get you going. Even looking at him on TV now, you see him giving guys speeches and getting guys going. Nothing has changed."

About the only thing that Tebow hasn't accomplished is to prove he can be an every-down NFL quarterback. The Jets seem to be preparing to use him as a gimmick back at first, giving him a select number of plays and limiting his snaps. Those who know Tebow know he will embrace the role. But they also know there is more he'd like to accomplish.

"He wants to be a quarterback in the National Football League," Howard said. "I know he doesn't want to be a tight end or just a Wildcat guy, he wants to be an NFL quarterback. That's his dream, his desire, and he'll work to achieve it. At some time he'll eventually be that guy."

"Everyone is trying to pigeonhole him," said Hess, who now coaches at Episcopal High School in Jacksonville. "Tom Brady, Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, everybody is trying to put him in that mold. I think we lose sight sometimes that it's all about winning games."

If the Jets somehow can channel that -- and embrace it the way coaches in the past have and others have regretted not doing -- perhaps they too will share in the spoils that Tebow has delivered at every stop of his career. At least every stop where he was allowed to be himself. To be Timmy.

"Success has followed him," Howard said before pausing and realizing he may have had that backward. "Actually, wherever he's gone, he's been a big part of that team having success."