The world knew him as Tim Tebow’s father. But anyone who ever sat across from Bob Tebow — whether in a jungle village in Mindanao, a prison yard in the Philippines, or a church pew in Jacksonville — knew something more. They knew a man who didn’t just talk about faith. He built hospitals with it. He traveled oceans for it. He raised five children inside it. And when Parkinson’s disease finally took his body apart piece by piece, he kept living it anyway.
Bob Tebow passed away on Thursday night, April 24, 2026. He was 78 years old. His son Tim announced the news the following morning in a tribute that stopped the sports world in its tracks. But this Bob Tebow obituary isn’t just about who he fathered. It’s about who he was — and why millions of people across Southeast Asia will remember him long after the news cycle moves on.
Who Was Bob Tebow? The Man Behind the Famous Name
A Boy With a Big Calling
Long before Tim Tebow was throwing touchdowns at the Swamp and winning Heisman Trophies, his father was a young man with a sense of purpose most people spend a lifetime searching for. Bob Tebow grew up with a deep religious conviction that the world had needs far bigger than anything he’d find in suburban America. That conviction never left him.
He carried it into adulthood. Into marriage. Into fatherhood. And eventually onto planes and boats bound for Southeast Asia.
Meeting Pam and Building a Life Rooted in Faith
Bob met the woman who would become his partner in every sense of the word during their time as students at the University of Florida. Pamela Tebow and Bob fell in love on the Gainesville campus and were married in 1971. It was the beginning of a partnership that would span decades, continents, and more challenges than most families could imagine.
Together, Bob and Pam would go on to have five children — Christy, Katie, Robby, Peter, and Tim — the youngest of whom would one day carry the Tebow name to every sports broadcast in America. But before any of that happened, Bob had somewhere else to go.
From Florida to the Philippines — The Missionary Journey That Changed Everything
Answering the Call in 1985
In 1985, Bob and Pam Tebow did something that most families wouldn’t even consider. They packed up their young children and moved to Mindanao, Philippines. No guaranteed income. No comfortable suburban life waiting for them. Just a calling and the guts to follow it.
Bob’s vision, as he would later put it, was to share the Gospel with every man, woman, and child in the Philippines. That’s not a small goal. The Philippines has over 7,000 islands and more than 100 million people. But Bob Tebow wasn’t the kind of man who looked at a big problem and shrank.
It’s worth noting that Tim Tebow was born in the Philippines in 1987 — two years into the family’s mission — which means the Heisman Trophy winner spent his earliest years on the mission field his father built.
What the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association Actually Did
In the mid-1990s, Bob and Pam founded the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association, commonly known as the BTEA. The organization wasn’t built for press releases. It was built for results.
The BTEA trained Filipino evangelists and placed them in provinces across the country — operating across Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao, which together cover the entire Philippine archipelago. The mission was straightforward: plant an evangelist in every province. Not just preach. Train. Equip. Send.
The organization’s work touched orphanages, rural communities, prisons, and underfunded villages. When Bob could no longer make the trips himself, Tim eventually stepped in to take over the primary leadership of the BTEA from his aging parents — carrying the torch his father had lit decades before.
The Tebow CURE Hospital — A Five-Story Monument to Mercy
One of the most concrete expressions of Bob Tebow’s legacy stands in the Philippines as a five-story hospital. The Tebow CURE Hospital opened in 2014 through a partnership between the Tim Tebow Foundation and CURE International. Bob Tebow returned to visit it even after his Parkinson’s diagnosis — walking (and later rolling in a wheelchair) through a facility that existed in part because of the seeds he and his family had planted.
When Tim Tebow spoke about watching his father in the Philippines, he described seeing a man completely at home. “When you see Dad in a third-world country with hurting people,” Tim told People magazine, “you’re like, that’s what he’s meant to do. It’s his most comfortable place to be in the world.”
Bob Tebow as a Father — The Man Who Shaped Tim Tebow’s Soul
Raising Five Kids on the Mission Field
It’s one thing to choose a life of faith-based service for yourself. It’s another to raise five children in it. Bob Tebow didn’t shelter his kids from the difficult parts of the world. He brought them along. He showed them orphanages and prisons and hospitals. He let them see what real need looked like.
That kind of upbringing doesn’t produce spoiled athletes. It produces people with perspective. All five Tebow children — Christy, Katie, Robby, Peter, and Tim — grew up understanding that the world was bigger than themselves. That’s not an accident. That’s parenting.
Why Bob Chose to Homeschool His Children
Bob and Pam Tebow made the decision to homeschool all five of their children, a choice that was less common in the late 1980s and 1990s than it is today. They became passionate advocates for home education long before it became a mainstream conversation.
The results speak for themselves. Tim Tebow became the first homeschooled player in history to win the Heisman Trophy — the most prestigious individual award in college football. His brothers Robby and Peter also played sports at Trinity Christian in Jacksonville. The Tebow family’s homeschool story is one of the most high-profile examples in American sporting history.
The Faith That Flowed From Father to Son
Tim Tebow’s faith has always been the most talked-about thing about him — more than his spiral, more than his rushing yards, more than his years in professional baseball. That faith didn’t come from a church program or a youth group retreat. It came from watching his father live it out loud every single day.
Bob Tebow prayed openly. He served sacrificially. He didn’t chase fame or comfort. He chased conviction. And his youngest son absorbed all of it.
The Parkinson’s Diagnosis That Couldn’t Slow Him Down
How Bob Tebow Found Out in 2016
In 2016, Tim Tebow sat down with People magazine and shared news that caught many fans off guard. His father had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. It was a cruel development for a man who had spent decades on his feet — traveling, preaching, building, serving.
Bob Tebow’s response to the diagnosis said everything about his character. He made clear he had no plans to use the illness as an excuse to slow down. He wasn’t going to let Parkinson’s force him into retirement from the Great Commission, the Christian calling to share the Gospel with the world.
Returning to the Philippines in a Wheelchair
True to his word, Bob returned to the Philippines after his diagnosis. He visited orphanages. He walked (and eventually rode) through prisons. He made it back to the Tebow CURE Hospital he had helped inspire. In the years that followed, Parkinson’s disease progressively took away his mobility — and by the end of his life, he was confined to a wheelchair.
But being in a wheelchair didn’t mean being inactive. It just meant doing the work from a different position.
“I Won’t Stop” — Bob Tebow’s Defiant Faith
The image of Bob Tebow returning to the Philippines while shaking from Parkinson’s symptoms is one of the most quietly powerful stories in the entire Tebow family narrative. Here was a man who could have retreated into comfort. He had a famous son who could have taken care of him in every way. Instead, he chose to keep going — slower, yes, but still going.
That kind of stubbornness rooted in love and faith is rare. It’s also the kind of thing that becomes a legacy.
Bob Tebow Obituary — How He Died and What the Family Said
The Night Heaven Welcomed a Hero
Bob Tebow died on the night of Thursday, April 24, 2026. He was 78 years old. The exact cause of his death was not immediately confirmed, though he had been battling Parkinson’s disease for the better part of a decade and had recently been confined to a wheelchair. The disease had clearly taken a serious toll on his health in his final months.
He passed away at 78, having lived a life that spanned two continents, five children, eight grandchildren, and an untold number of lives changed through the BTEA and the Tebow CURE Hospital.
Tim Tebow’s Heartbreaking but Hopeful Announcement
Tim Tebow announced his father’s death the following morning on social media. The post was everything you’d expect from someone raised by Bob Tebow — grief and gratitude mixed together, rooted in the kind of faith that doesn’t buckle under loss.
Tim wrote that he had asked his father just the week before what he was most looking forward to about Heaven. Bob’s answer was one word: Jesus. He said he couldn’t wait to see Jesus face to face.
Tim’s closing words captured the spirit of the whole Tebow family: “He’s healed and whole now. So we don’t mourn as those with no hope. See you soon, Dad.”
Demi Leigh Tebow’s Moving Tribute
Tim wasn’t the only one to speak. His wife, Demi Leigh Tebow — the former Miss Universe 2017 — shared her own tribute that acknowledged not just the grief of losing Bob, but the weight of the legacy he left behind.
Demi Leigh wrote that while heaven was rejoicing, the emptiness on this side was real and heavy. She thanked her father-in-law for the extraordinary life he lived and the remarkable impact he had on so many — people far beyond his own family.
There’s something deeply poignant about the fact that at Tim and Demi’s wedding in January 2020, Bob Tebow attended in a wheelchair — and Tim was photographed pushing him. That image said more than any tribute ever could.
The Legacy Bob Tebow Leaves Behind
A Wife, Five Children, and Eight Grandchildren
Bob Tebow is survived by his wife, Pamela Tebow, their five children — Christy, Katie, Robby, Peter, and Tim — and eight grandchildren. He and Pam were married for over 50 years, a partnership that took them from a Florida university campus to the jungles of the Philippines and back again.
That kind of marriage, sustained through decades of mission work, financial uncertainty, and eventually serious illness, is its own kind of testimony.
What Tim Tebow Has Said About His Dad’s Influence
Over the years, Tim Tebow has spoken about his father in ways that go far beyond the typical athlete-praising-parent formula. He’s talked about watching Bob serve people who had nothing. He’s talked about learning what it means to prioritize something bigger than yourself. He’s talked about the way his father prayed.
None of that was staged. You can tell because Tim has been saying it since before he was famous — and he’s been living it since.
The BTEA Continues Without Its Founder
Last year, Tim Tebow formally took over the primary leadership of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association from his parents. Bob had been passing the torch gradually as Parkinson’s made the hands-on work harder. The transition ensured that the organization would continue its mission of placing evangelists across every province of the Philippines.
In that sense, Bob Tebow’s work isn’t over. It’s just in different hands now — his youngest son’s. The man who built it would probably say that’s exactly how it was supposed to go.
Frequently Asked Questions About Bob Tebow
How old was Bob Tebow when he died? Bob Tebow was 78 years old at the time of his death on the night of April 24, 2026.
What did Bob Tebow die from? Bob Tebow had been battling Parkinson’s disease since his diagnosis in 2016. He had been confined to a wheelchair in his final period of life. The family did not immediately confirm a specific cause of death beyond the long battle with Parkinson’s.
Who is Bob Tebow? Bob Tebow was a Baptist missionary, evangelical minister, and founder of the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association. He is also the father of former NFL quarterback and Heisman Trophy winner Tim Tebow. Bob and his wife Pam spent decades doing mission work in the Philippines and across Southeast Asia.
Did Tim Tebow’s dad have Parkinson’s disease? Yes. Bob Tebow was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease in 2016. Tim Tebow publicly revealed the diagnosis in an interview with People magazine that same year.
Where was Tim Tebow born? Tim Tebow was born in the Philippines in 1987, while his parents Bob and Pam Tebow were serving as missionaries on the island of Mindanao.
What is the Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association? The Bob Tebow Evangelistic Association (BTEA) is a missionary organization founded by Bob and Pam Tebow in the mid-1990s. It focuses on training and placing Filipino evangelists in provinces across the Philippines — in the Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao regions. Tim Tebow took over leadership of the BTEA from his parents in recent years.
Who is Pam Tebow? Pam Tebow is Bob Tebow’s wife. She and Bob met as students at the University of Florida and were married in 1971. She is the mother of five children, including Tim Tebow, and has been a vocal advocate for homeschooling and pro-life causes. Pam is survived by her husband’s death and is supported by her five children and eight grandchildren.
How did Tim Tebow react to his father’s death? Tim Tebow posted a heartfelt tribute on social media, describing his father as “a hero of the faith” and saying he didn’t mourn without hope — because he knew exactly where his father was. Tim revealed he had spoken with his dad just days before his passing, and that Bob’s final desire was simply to see Jesus face to face.