An Intriguing Personality—Terrell Owens
Some individuals are simply intriguing. They are different. They are complex and fascinating. They march to a different drum. They achieved successes in life because they think, feel, and act differently from any norm. My most admired character study is Abraham Lincoln. No matter how much you analyze him the intrigue never wears thin. This is also true of Victoria Woodhull. To a lesser degree the same is true of Barack Obama or Allen Iverson, or Teddy Roosevelt, James Baldwin, Barry Goldwater, Winston Churchill, Harry Truman, Gandhi, and so on. On the ‘evil’ side Hitler, Stalin, and Trump come to mind.
Terrell Owens was raised in a very unusual home environment under extraordinary influence from his grandmother. Except for school and sport practice Terrell Owens was not allowed to leave the small yard to play with other kids because his grandmother said he was “special” and destined to be somebody whereas the other kids were going nowheres in life. Terrell was raised in a poor town in a poor state (Alabama). He seemed to spend his young years intimidated by everything around him. He was so shy right up through college that hardly anyone remembers much about him. He didn’t talk much, just watched and listened, especially to his grandmother who told him never to trust anyone, that people would try to bring him down and stop him from succeeding. There was certainly racial overtones to the advice. His father lived across the street but Terrell had no knowledge that was his father. His mother worked long hours for slave wages in some factory, and he had a sister and brother.
It probably is no surprise that Terrell’s world was very small, not too much of a stretch to say his world consisted of himself and his grandmother with other family members playing a bit role. Whatever his thoughts, they were limited to this small world within his own mind. Not surprisingly, Terrell had no social interactions with others of any note. He went to school, he passed his courses, and he participated in sports, just silently listening to his teachers, his coaches, and other students. He had little athletic talent—he was tall, scrawny, and was never first string on the team. He likely day dreamed a lot, mostly about becoming somebody instead of a nobody. He believed God was on his side and still does to this day.
If Terrell did not have noteworthy innate genetic athletic talent, he did have a genetic endowment of amazing willpower. Modern science now has demonstrated that we are essentially born with a certain degree of willpower, and that it can be used up. We don’t break someone of their willpower, we simply make them use it up. The reservoir of will power varies from person to person. From his grandmother he learned to focus on goals and never ever give up, and that only he could help himself—others were never to be trusted. Terrell chose football as the means whereby he would make a name for himself. By high school he devised his own training program and started running all over town before school and spent time in the weight room to develop his muscles. Here he was blessed genetically with muscles that responded well to his training program. He spent a lot of time listening to what coaches would tell starters on the team. When it came to his teenage goal—to become a ‘great’ wide receiver his focus was singular, intense, and became a compulsive obsession. Compulsive is a word that would be used with Terrell Owens a lot.
Many great athletes were obvious in their talent, even in Junior High, and were ‘spoiled with attention and support’ by coaches, fellow students, teachers—while they were inundated with offers to help them with their career. Terrell Owens got none of that in high school or college. If he played it was mostly because the starter got injured. He did well, but not well enough to draw any great amount of attention. He had no serious girlfriends and when in college he talked almost every night with his grandmother. By the end of college he had become a good wide receiver, was now a starter and he was drafted 81st in the third round of the draft by San Francisco.
This musing is not about football, but about the character of Terrell Owens so football will be mentioned only in so far it relates to his character. When Terrell Owens showed up in San Francisco as a distant third round pick, he was still a shy, withdrawn, quiet person with no enemies simply because he was inconspicuous. But by now all the weight training and running and a personal exercise regime had bulked him up and he was a very strong tall wide receiver. He had devised his own diet, and no other aspect of his life got any attention except football. His social life was limited to sexual encounters on the one or two days a week football was not the entire focus. Romance, like all other social endeavors, seemed non existent.
From high school on Terrell was an extreme loner. He did not seek or respond to any effort by others to be his friend—not teammates, not teachers, not coaches, not trainers, not girls, no-one. There is this current notion that Terrell was a real distraction in the locker room, that he was verbally attacking others, throwing others under the bus and just a real social disturbance in the locker room. Nothing could have been further from the truth. He hardly spoke to anyone else, he had, and still has, this protective bubble around him and no one is permitted into his solitary mindset.
When Terrell Owens reported to the San Francisco 49er’s he was still a shy, quiet, observer in life. He had developed his body on his own to the extent he was a very strong and well trained athlete. Steve Young, his quarterback likes to tell the story that he had to tell Terrell Owens to stop calling him sir. Finding himself on the same team as Jerry Rice, the top receiver in NFL history gave Terrell Owens a perfect person to study. At some point Terrell noticed that the quarterbacks and coaches were under constant pressure from Rice to give him the ball, and if they did not, Rice raised hell. Terrell, if nothing else, paid total attention to all aspects of being a wide receiver. On his own he took care of the fitness issue, the strength issue, the endurance issue, and at some point early in his years at San Francisco he decided to create the T.O. personality.
Whether fans or coaches or other teammates like it, wide receivers depend on getting the ball a lot or they will be traded as not very productive. Like everything else relating to football T.O. determined to be an explosive force to ensure the ball came his way. His physical size and mysterious personality put him in a perfect position to be effective with his pressure. By the time he reached San Francisco Terrell Owens already knew just about everything he needed to know about the position. His innate intelligence and focus and willpower were such that probably no other wide receiver ever spent as much time developing his mental abilities as related to the wide receiver position. It would be hard to find anyone at that position who ever came as far as him in terms of developing limited natural talent into something quite admirable. It is literally true that from high school to the NFL Terrell Owens owed only his own efforts and learning for his progress. There were no coaches taking him under their wing thinking he would be a great NFL star, no parental pressures, no social forces at work to motivate him. He motivated himself, in part because he never allowed others to penetrate the mental cocoon from which he related to the outside world.
In practice he hardly talked to anyone. Coaches found him rather unapproachable. He distanced himself fro the media. He remembered how much his grandmother admonished him that others would try to ‘keep him down on the farm’, to become hurdles on his way to success. He really didn’t bother anyone. He just didn’t relate well to anyone. Jerry Rice said “Don’t ever cross T.O., he never forgets and you will be his enemy for life”. Bill Walsh, who tried to work with T.O., remarked that “Terrell Owens is not an act; it really is him. His perception of what others think about him is does not always match reality. Things can be going along smoothly and all of a sudden he will tip the whole boat over.”
Terrell Owens, over the years, has had very few personal enemies amongst those on the same team with him. Off the field he is soft spoken and simply aloof. No one ever had to worry about T.O, getting in trouble off the field, getting drunk, assaulting anyone, hanging in bars with his ‘homeboys” or “posse” or any other group. In fact it was rare, and still is, to find T.O. out in public with anyone but himself. The basic problem at San Francisco seemed to be that while the coaches and players admired T.O., his work ethic, his contributions on the field——he was aloof, not close to anyone, and was a one man band celebrating his own performances. Terrell had the ultimate confidence in himself and distrusted anyone else. Many fans tired of his bragging and touchdown celebrations: “Why can’t he act like he has been there before and let others do the bragging and celebrating for him”. Well, in reality he had not been there before, especially not as a child. He really did not have a normal childhood and develop any social skills to speak of. He really was a one man band. His wild excitement surfaced for his own performance and not enough excitement for the achievements during the game of his teammates. Terrell lived in his world, and everyone else lived in their collective world.
As his own coach, trainer, and cheerleader, T.O. began to be a threat to the team coach during the games. Steve Young didn’t need any help and was good enough to make last minute decisions during the game and he and T.O. got along just fine. But when Steve had to retire because of a serious concussion, the job fell to Jeff Garcia and he, to be successful, needed help. T.O. would notice certain things about a defender and insist the play called to be changed. Jeff would sometimes do it, and more often than not it would result in a big gain or a touchdown. The head coach was unnerved by this. Back in those days the head coaches tended to give quarterbacks less leeway in play calling.
This created tension between the head coach and T.O. Terrell Owens is a combination of head-strong and honest. Both T.O. and Jeff Garcia knew the change in calls were usually good ones. The head coach in this case had a choice: demand that T.O. mind his own business and stop pressuring Garcia to change the play, or seeing that T.O. was making some good calls based on some good perceptions about his defenders, give him some latitude with the understanding that his changes better work most of the time. It’s the old clash, between insisting that everyone know their place, and making adjustments of whatever to win the game. Garcia never made the Pro Bowl when Owens was not his quarterback.
Many fans and media figures began to dislike T.O.’s bragging, his post touchdown celebrations, his self-serving confidence, and displaying his raw feelings no matter the consequences. His grandmother had told him never to lie—no matter what. When young he was the class tattletale. The teacher could always depend on Terrell to tell who misbehaved. When students tried to beat him up he ran home but his grandmother would not let him in the house, telling him he needed to go back and defend himself because that is what others always would try to do— to put him in his place. In Terrell’s mind God would protect him and all he needed in life was his Grandmother and God. Well, while in college Terrell’s grandmother developed Alzheimer’s and began to deteriorate before his eyes. Media talk show hosts would book him unto a show and deliberately bring up his grandmother in order to make him cry—a sort of “see the big man cry”. It still works today. In some strange way, his grandmother was his only ‘true’ friend in his life. Context is everything here. With his one friend gone (like who has just one close friend?) T.O. became more inaccessible to others.
There is this perception that T.O. was in the locker room stirring up trouble, saying nasty things to other teammates, criticizing other teammates in the locker room, stirring up controversy, undermining the coaches, etc. Nothing could have been further from the truth. T.O. paid little attention to other players, let alone bad mouth them in the locker room, and was a sterling example of year long conditioning, focus, and willpower. They all knew how important he was to the team when the game started. Of course they wanted him to be more interactive with them, do things with them off the field, communicate his feelings with them as friends etc. The notion that most of them hated T.O. is a product of media imagination. Frustration and puzzlement was the universal state of mind of players and coaches when it came to T.O. He would often pace the side lines during a game yelling to no one but himself such nuggets as “Who can make great play? I can, I can” “nobody can stop me, nobody can stop me”, “I am going to love me some me”, and “Give me the ball, I can win this game”. This was little more in significance than a demonstration of his genetically empowered willpower. It would be hard to find anyone with more willpower than Terrell Owens. Of course one feels sympathy with Coach Mariucci of San Francisco—who felt he was the coach and Terrell was not going run the game plan during the game. Terrell was never a problem in practice or the locker room trying to the run the show at all. He did what the coaches said in practice. If they said do something 4 times, he would do it ten. Unfortunately for Mariucci, during the game, Terrell’s insight in particular situations was better than Mariucci’s. Given the combination of willpower, focus, knowledge of his position, and honesty, it is hardly any surprise Terrell, in the heat of the battle on the field, was a force that needed to be used, not suppressed. Terrell only had one coach secure enough to fully utilize his talents and that was Andy Reid. Even Donovan McMan, his quarterback, annoyed by T.O.’s personality, had the good sense to pay attention to Terrell in the huddle during games. Like every quarterback Terrell ever had in the NFL Donovan had his best years when T.O. was on the team.
It was during his years at San Francisco that certain elements of the media began to really dislike him. Terrell Owens became very selective as to which media persons he would ever sit down with one to one. He learned quickly that so many of them used his commitment to honesty as a weapon to create trouble for him. Honesty is an ethical mantra for Terrell Owens. No matter the consequences, with few exceptions, if any, Terrell simply doesn’t lie about his feelings or his own interpretations of situations. That does not mean that he is always right, but simply that he will give his honest feelings. The incidents the media used to cause trouble for T.O. are, as put downs go, among the mildest put downs one ever hears in the sport world.
Let’s take the Super Bowl which Philadelphia almost won. Owens seriously tore up one ankle a few weeks before the Super Bowl—lot of fractures and torn tissues. He underwent surgery and had pins put into his ankle. Terrell insisted he would be ready for the Super Bowl. His doctors said “No way”. Terrell insisted he was ready. Andy Reid said no, the doctors were dead set against letting him play. The day before Terrell signed a medical waiver, taking full responsibility for any injuries he sustained during the game. So Terrell played, went well over 100 yards for the game, a medical miracle if there ever was one. Some players claimed Donovan was exhausted at the end, too tired to perform well. Asked about it in an interview, T.O. responded he never made any such claim but he knew “I was not the one who got tired.” He gave an honest answer but his media critics went berserk and said he threw Donovan under the bus. In another interview later, he was asked how he felt about Michael Irwin saying that Philly would be undefeated early in the season if Brett Favre was their quarterback. Terrell thought about if a bit and said, “yes, I can see the reasoning there”. That was the excuse the Owner of the team gave for suspending Terrell and getting rid of him. The real reason was T.O.’s inability to get a revised contract as Donovan got. T.O. was way underpaid for his production and T.O. realized the big money about to come up in a year or two would probably never come because, in the NFL, the contracts are only binding to the player, not the owner. As Terrell explained later, Donovan has been playing hurt, Brett Favre was a sure Hall of Famer, and so the logic used by Irwin made sense. Does anyone really believe Donovan was a better quarterback than Brette Favre? So, in reality, Terrell was being crucified for being honest. Did anyone claim the originator of the statement was throwing Donovan under the bus?
Donovan himself gets too much criticism for his actions during all this. Donovan is human too. He didn’t like T.O .’s antics and attention he received by the media and fans. Despite his feelings once the game started, he worked with and depended on T.O. just like before the clash began. They were on their way to a possible second chance at a Super Bowl. Even today, Donovan admits T.O. is one of the top three wide receivers ever. Coach Reid today says Terrell was one of the most fun players to coach he has ever had. T.O. was not a coaches or player’s nightmare, but an owner’s nightmare in that he was one player on the football ‘plantation’ over which the owner had no control. T.O. and the bubble within which he lived came as a package deal.
The reasons media critics give for teams getting rid of Owens are mostly disingenuous. San Francisco was a situation where Terrell wanted out on his own terms. Both Mariucci and Owens had valid personal reasons for wanting out. The difference was that Owens wanted out on his own terms to go where he wanted to go and San Francisco wanted to trade him where they wanted and to get the most money from a trade. Terrell won that battle in a grievance. End of story there. In Philadelphia the owner was known to backload contracts and when the time came to pay out big money he would trade the player and get a lot of money while saving money on the contract. End of story right there. Had the owner given him a new contract (an often done thing) Terrell would have remained at Philly. Certainly Coach Reid didn’t want him out, and afterwards even Donovan said it hurt the team a lot to lose Terrell. But Rice said it right: “Don’t ever cross Terrell Owens. He will never forget or forgive.” Terrell just could not easily or ever forgive—the person targeted would be one of those people his grandmother said would try to put him in his place, keep him down on the farm, teach him a lesson. It is doubtful at his age now that he will ever really trust anyone his entire life. Dallas was a situation were Terrell was caught between a pillar and a post career-wise. Both Witten and Owens were on a track to be Hall of Fame bound. But each needed the yardage and touchdowns to get there. The coach and quarterback wanted to feed it more to Whitten, and as Terrell would say ‘nickel and dime it down the field rather than go for the big play’. At first Jerry Jones was on Terrell’s side, but Owens lost as Jones, Romo, and Whitten became close social friends off the field. So Owens was released for reasons which also included his age and the perception he was beginning to go downhill. This may or may not be true.
Both Buffalo and Cincy picked up an aging receiver to see if he could bring them to at least the playoffs. He couldn’t, although his stats each of the seasons were very good, especially considering that with Cincy where he was on track to receive bonuses for his good stats, but he got injured at the end of the season and lost out there.
At this point in his career he probably was not blackballed. No teams are eager to spend a lot of money on a receiver that age. Plus, times had changed and most teams wanted to spread the ball around to the receivers and that clearly would not be the best scenario for Terrell.
When his turn came to getting into the Hall of Fame the scene was set for the voting members ( most obscure local sports writers who deeply resented having no individual access to Terrell at any point in their career). No one else ever did either, not coaches, owners, players, fans, even gals since Terrell was off limits to all from Tues thru Sunday during the season and off season. By nature, he needed a lot of personal space. These ‘pencil pushers’, as Terrell described them, saw their chance to humiliate him and even the score for him not being accessible to them. They simply declared the locker room an extension of the playing field and declared him a poison to every team he had been on. Never mind that no team he ever left became better after his departure. Not a one. These writers claimed no one wanted him and that is why is was on so many teams. That’s a neat argument. He was in the league 16 yrs and during that time he was employed every single year. Not exactly the track record of someone nobody wants. So they rejected him as a first ballot selection, then a second ballet selection and it still goes on. It mattered not that every coach (even Mariucci) supported him for first year election to the Hall of Fame. So did every quarterback, every receiver coach, and seemingly every former teammate asked, including Donovan.
Terrells reaction to these media critics, who called him every nasty character assassination name possible, was muted throughout his career and right up to the present. He doesn’t return the name calling but just defends his character. He has always shrugged them off as ‘they are paid to do what they do, they are good at it, and I cannot defend myself. it is what it is”. He then would follow this with: “ I am a football player. That is what I do. I play football. And my goal is to be the very best wide receiver I can be during the games.” He did not have the time or inclination to engage these writers in any nasty character assassination games. Off the field he is basically a soft spoken, friendly enough, honest, aloof mystery to others. He speaks well, is very intelligent, has never been in trouble with the law, or suspended by the league, or fined by the league for any off the field behavior. Naturally the locker rooms are under the control of each teams coaches and players. It hardly is the business of some distant local sports writers to cast career judgements about which players are the best locker room teammates, not that any very specific guidelines could ever be written up. Players are as diverse in their personalities as the general public. These local football writers who comprised Terrell’s enemies on the committee seem to be saying that they will be the judge of locker room behavior, not the coaches or the players. What player or coach ever stepped forward and stated T.O. should be stopped as first time Hall of Fame induction because of his locker room presence? This was simply a new twist invented by his media critics on the committee and they got away with it.
Many major national media analyses tried to soften the assassination by saying there was a backup of players waiting to be admitted and that was the reason he had to wait. But many members of the committee willing to state they voted against him, made it crystal clear this was no backup situation, that Terrell Owens was being denied because of his personality, antics, and that their vote was personal—they immensely disliked his personality, and—if his coaches, quarterbacks, and teammates would not take a stand against his personality, they would, and teach him a lesson he would never forget.
Well, he certainly will never forget what they did, but the reality is that T.O. is very stable mentally. The bubble he created to block anyone from getting inside that bubble, has remarkably worked very well to allow Terrell to focus on whatever he wants to focus on and not be disturbed by the ‘noise’ of others around him. He seems well aware that there is no way his induction can be an honor for him. It is just another “it is what it is” thing. He feels they have dishonored themselves.
And they have done just that. Had they simply elected him first ballot to the Hall of Fame, T.O. would have already been mostly forgotten. But they didn’t. As a result, the insulated Terrell Owens has been inundated with high praise from practically everyone associated with NFL football. Even the fans who the media encouraged to hate Terrell Owens have had to think over what it was he ever said or did, that deserved denying him being rewarded for his play on the field. Most of them ended up saying essentially “I was not a fan of Terrell Owens but he was one hell of a player on the field and yes, I hated him for it and all his bragging. But it is crazy to deny him entrance to the Hall of Fame on the first ballot.” It is interesting whenever a star NFL player is interviewed on this issue, they seem to always preface their remarks by “I don’t know Terrell Owens well at all, he stays to himself”….. and then, after endorsing him as a first time elected Hall of Fame member, end up saying in effect :”This is crazy —Terrell Owens not being elected to the Hall of Fame? If Terrell Owens does not deserve to be in the Hall of Fame, who the hell does?”
These hostile writers got it all mixed up. None of his quarterbacks, coaches, or teammates (outside an isolated few, hard to quantify this as they keep very quiet) hated him at all. Almost everyone would say they did not understand him, that he was aloof, focused on his own performance, but they almost all admired what was amazing about Terrell Owens—his focus, his will power, his knowledge of the game, his year round daily conditioning, his ability to be a game changer. They understood that these characteristics were exactly what made him a great player and they did not see it as being selfish at all. Rather they understood that he was an example of someone who was insanely focused on his football goals to such an extent that he actually managed to develop his innate limited athletic potential into enough ability to reach the top of the pile.
Terrell knows he got to the top and he genuinely now (thanks to some obscure pencil pushers) is receiving the praise and warmth he so desperately appreciates at this point in his life. If he is not the original “I did it my way” guy, he certainly came the longest distance against the longest odds of most anyone who got there “my way”. His focus and willpower enabled him to get over, run through, or run around every hurdle in his way en route. It is rare for anyone, with that strategy, to succeed, especially if everyone else is seen as enemy who may be trying to trip him up.
I doubt Terrell Owens really cares anymore about when, if ever, he gets into the Hall of Fame. He has gotten the praise he needs from all those in his career from whom praise means something to him. He will never be Mr. Lovable, some big cuddly warm and charming best friend in any social sense. Getting respect for what he accomplished is all he needs and his achievements in football was all he was ever able to give us in return. His total focus and willpower directed toward a single goal in life took it’s toll on other aspects of his life—financially, romantically, socially, and so on. He seems to know this and can live contented without great wealth or sociableness . He seems comfortable with himself and that is something everyone tries to achieve.
The Terrell Owens story is simply intriguing.
