Church groups plan pilgrimages to Jets camp to see Tim Tebow

Posted by Michael David Smith
July 15, 2012, 2:04 PM EDT

NBC Sports:

Tim Tebow may be a second-stringer, but his presence — more than that of any other player — will be felt at Jets training camp.

The Jets’ training camp takes place at the State University of New York at Cortland, and officials there say they’re already preparing for swelling crowds made up of church groups that will travel from far away to watch Tebow sweat through August practices and run the Wildcat offense.

“A couple months ago, I got a call from a church group, then another and I thought it was interesting, not groups we normally get calls from,” Jim Dempsey of the Cortland County Convention and Visitors Bureau told the New York Daily News. “Right now, we have no way of knowing how many more groups will come because of Tim Tebow. But we expect a lot.”

Tebow has a track record of drawing huge crowds of Evangelical Christians, with tens of thousands attending his Easter sermon in Texas and his Father’s Day sermon in California. And starting next week, the crowds will follow him to Jets camp.