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Super Bowl ad with Tebow, mother light-hearted in tone

NEW YORK -- Even the long-awaited Super Bowl ad from conservative group Focus on the Family came with a punchline -- a hard hit and a soft sell.

The 30-second "Celebrate family, celebrate life" ad starring Heisman winner Tim Tebow ended with a surprise -- Tim Tebow tackling his mother after she says she nearly lost him during her pregnancy. The pair jokes that they have to be "tough" with all the family has been through.

The commercial sparked debate before it was even broadcast, and some groups called for CBS not to air it. Planned Parenthood made an online video response to the Tebow ad with former NFL player Sean James and Olympic Gold medal winner Al Joyner. The two discuss the importance of women being able to make their own health decisions.

The ad is the first such advocacy ad to appear in television's most-watched broadcast, which draws about 100 million viewers. It aired early in the first quarter.

The subtle and humorous ad made some wonder what all the fuss was about.

The commercial, which shows just Tebow and his mother, Pam, against a white backdrop, does not contain an overt antiabortion message. Instead it sends people to Focus on the Family's website, which tells more of the Tebows' story and offers a more straightforward message.

The devout quarterback's mother gave birth to him in the Philippines in 1987 after spurning a doctor's advice to have an abortion for medical reasons.

"I can remember so many times when I almost lost him," Pam Tebow said in describing her pregnancy.

The ad was "very gentle", which was surprising considering how much talk it generated before it even aired," said Tim Calkins, a marketing professor at Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He said the use of humor helped make the ad more accessible -- and not off-putting to most people -- although the ad's message was hidden, which made it confusing to people who weren't familiar with it.

"I think they took a very interesting strategy. It's clearly an effort to steer away from controversy," he said. "I suspect the people they were going after understood the message, but ... for most people, I don't think the ad really did a lot for them."

Because the ad was so subtle and had so much mystery to it, it will get people whose minds are not made up about the abortion debate to evaluate the group's agenda, said Charles R. Taylor, professor of marketing at Villanova School of Business.

"To the extent that there are people that they can influence, this probably does a good job of driving them to the website and getting them to check it out. I think it's much more effective than something more explicit would have been," he said.

The Women's Media Center, which had objected to Focus on the Family advertising in the Super Bowl, said it was expecting a "benign" ad but not the humor. But the group's president, Jehmu Greene, said the tackle showed an undercurrent of violence against women.

"I think they're attempting to use humor as another tactic of hiding their message and fooling the American people," she said.

The ad didn't draw much attention at the Underground Lounge in New York, where the game was on. Sarah Cashin, 39, a business manager, said she didn't see why the ad was controversial.

"I didn't find it offensive. I don't quite understand why everyone was so up in arms about it," she said.

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Anything to get into their head..

Sapp out of jail on bond, pulled off NFL Network

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. -- Former NFL star Warren Sapp was released from jail Sunday on $1,500 bond, a day after being arrested for allegedly choking a woman in his hotel room.

Sapp was released at about 11 a.m. Sunday -- a time the NFL Network analyst would have been helping with Super Bowl coverage.

The network has pulled Sapp off the air until it investigates the matter.

Police arrested Sapp on Saturday on one charge of misdemeanor domestic battery. An arrest affidavit says the incident happened around 5 a.m. Saturday in the former defensive tackle's hotel room at the Shore Club on Miami Beach.

Sapp's attorney said the former player is taking the matter seriously and will cooperate with authorities.

"He sincerely apologizes to the NFL family and fans for taking away any distraction from today's big game," Christopher Lyons said. "We ask that everyone reserve judgment on the matter until all the facts come out in a court of law."

The woman said she had been dating Sapp about two years. She told officers the two were partying with a large group of friends when she got tired and went to lay down.

Sapp entered hours later, pulled her out of bed and tried to get her out of the room, according to the complaint. The complaint says he yelled at the woman about men she had been hanging out with and men listed in her cell phone.

The woman told police Sapp choked her, threw her down on a couch, then picked her up by her shirt and neck and threw her down again -- injuring her leg.

The victim had a swollen knee and bruises on her neck, the affidavit says. She was taken to the hospital.

Sapp told investigators he let the woman stay in his room but asked her to leave a few hours later because he was expecting company. He told police the woman fell on her leg when he tried to help her get off a couch.

Sapp played for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and the Oakland Raiders during a 13-year NFL career. He also was once a contestant on ABC's Dancing with the Stars.

Whiner Line!

FSU loses 12 football wins, '07 track title

Florida State will vacate athletic victories from 2006 and 2007, including 12 credited to former football coach Bobby Bowden, as part of its penalty for an academic fraud scandal in 2006-07 involving 61 student-athletes, the school announced.

Last month, the NCAA upheld Florida State's appeal of sanctions affecting Bowden and nine other teams stemming from a cheating scandal involving an online music course. The vacation of wins was the only penalty Florida State appealed.

The football team vacated five wins from the 2006 season, including the Emerald Bowl at the end of that season, and seven wins from 2007.

Bowden retired after the 2009 season with 389 wins over a 57-year career, the second most in major college football behind Penn State's Joe Paterno. The penalty leaves him with 377 wins.

The university also gave up its 2007 NCAA Division I championship in men's track and field and NCAA tournament victories in women's basketball and baseball. It vacated 22 men's basketball wins from 2006-07, including two in the NIT; 16 women's basketball wins in 2006-07 and six more from 2007-08; and wins or meet placings in men's and women's cross country, men's and women's track and field, men's and women's swimming and diving and men's golf teams.

Under the penalty, the NCAA said it was up to Florida State to determine which wins were to be vacated.

Among the victories vacated:

• Softball: 32 wins from 2006-07, including two from the ACC tournament.

• Baseball: 4 wins from 2006-07, including one NCAA tournament win.

• Men's indoor track and field: dropped from 2nd to 4th place at NCAA championship.

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