Tim Tebow will go down in history as one of the greatest college football players to ever play the game. Tebow is getting ready to head into his senior season as the quarterback of the University of Florida Gators with two national championship rings and a Heisman trophy under his belt. He is living every 21-year-old guy’s dream, but Tim Tebow is not your typical 21-year-old. Like I talk about in ONO, the first step in living the ONO lifestyle is developing your higher purpose. Tim Tebow has clearly defined his higher purpose in life, and it has nothing to do with the sport of football.

Read this section of a recent ESPN article by Ivan Maisel and you will understand why Tim Tebow’s goal is to be an all-star human being, not an all-star football player.

“…Great players can be found at the intersection of Talent and Passion. But that is an incomplete address for the Florida quarterback. He has what few 21-year-old athletes possess. He has what few 21-year-old anythings possess. Tebow has perspective.

"He's a vicious competitor, OK?" Florida offensive coordinator Steve Addazio said. "But yet his compassion is endless. How many times have you seen that?"

Through his family's evangelism, Tebow has seen the Third World. Through his own outreach, he speaks at prisons in Central Florida. He visits local hospitals.

"I think more so than playing football and being a competitor and trying to win," Tebow said, "compassion and love for helping people is so much more important than any of those other qualities can ever amount to being."

"Compassion" is not a word often heard in football, unless it's the fourth quarter and Florida is pummeling Charleston Southern. It is not a trait the sport prizes. Tebow has all the traits football prizes: toughness, competitiveness, desire. None of them is first on his list.

"Just helping, being someone who, when someone needs something, you're there for them; if it's a teammate, if it's a Make-a-Wish kid, if it's someone in the hospital," Tebow said. "And not just someone who does it here and there, now and then. That's my life. That's what I want it to be. When I'm done playing football, my life isn't over."

One of a quarterback's greatest talents is the ability to see the whole field. A month before he turns 22, a month before practice begins for his final college football season, Tebow sounded as if he is able to see the whole field -- in uniform or out. "I think a good way of explaining it is football is what I do but it's not who I am," he said. "So many people get caught up in 'This is who I am. I'm a football player.' No, that's what I do. I play football and I love playing football. … I'm so much more outside of that.

"I don't want to be labeled as a football player. I want to be labeled as someone who, when someone needed something, or when someone asked me to do something, I was there for them. I was there to support them. I wanted to help them genuinely, not because it looked good or not because someone was going to write about it, but because I genuinely cared about helping someone else."

All of which led to the question: If Tebow had never played football, what would be his normal life?

"I don't really think about normal," Tebow said. "I think normal is something I never wanted to be."

There was never any danger of that. No danger at all.