Nobody is quite sure whether Tim Tebow will find a role with the New England Patriots, but if things don't work out he might have another option.
According to WEEI.com, longtime baseball scout Tom Kotchman said that he wanted to draft Tebow out of high school.
Photo by Gray QuettiTim Tebow, Nease
"We wanted to draft him," said Kotchman, then a scout with the Angels, "but he never sent back his information card. Either it never got to him, or … It’s Tim Tebow. Who knows if it got to him, and if it did we just never got it back. Otherwise were were going to take him."
In addition to being a standout quarterback at
Nease (Ponte Vedra, Fla.), Tebow hit .494 with four home runs as a junior while leading the baseball team deep into the playoffs. By his senior year, though, he had made up his mind to play football and skipped his final baseball season to enroll early at the University of Florida.
"He had a strong arm and had a lot of power. If he would have been there his senior year he definitely would have had a good chance to be drafted," said scout Stephen Hargett, who worked with Kotchman with the Angels. "It was just easy for him. You thought, if this guy dedicated everything to baseball like he did to football how good could he be?"
View photos of Tim Tebow in high schoolTebow hasn't put his baseball days entirely behind him. In 2010 he reportedly took batting practice at
Memphis University (Tenn.).
According to reports, which were confirmed by Memphis University coach Kyle Finney, Tebow hit 12 of 15 pitches over the fence.
Nease head baseball coach Greg "Boo" Mullins agrees with the scouts' assessment.
He
told The Sporting News, "Everybody should know this: He wasn’t just a great football player, he was a great baseball player, too. I believe he could have played in the big leagues."