NFL

Jets’ Tebow: Injured teen ‘inspiration to me’

Jets quarterback Tim Tebow talked about the phone call he placed to an injured teenager Monday night.

Tebow called Matt Hardy, 17, of Albany after a Twitter campaign was launched that made #TebowCallMatt trend nationally. Hardy survived a car accident that killed two of his friends.

“We talked for a while and he was just in awesome spirits for what had taken place,” Tebow said. “He was just an inspiration to me. You call him, trying to encourage him [and] trying to say a few words of inspiration, but the way his attitude was and his focus, it was just awesome.”

Hardy and his friend Bailey Wind, 17, survived a crash on Saturday night that left two of their friends, Chris Stewart and Deanna Rivers, both 17, dead. The Albany Times-Union reported the driver of the other car, Dennis Drue, failed a sobriety test at the scene of the accident.

Hardy’s friends launched the Twitter campaign to get Tebow to call. Someone brought it to Tebow’s attention and he called Hardy, who didn’t believe it was Tebow at first.

“Anytime something like that happens to me, it’s humbling,” Tebow said. “You feel almost not worthy of being wanted to talk to somebody. You think of what have I done to deserve an opportunity to try to encourage a kid like that.

“It’s worth everything and it’s awesome. It’s better than any touchdown I’ll ever score.”