The other Terrell
Not everyone equates T.O. with ego and controversy
By CHAREAN WILLIAMS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/EMILY MCLAIN
Terrell Owens' grandmother, Alice Black, raised him in this small house, where he wasn't allowed to watch television or talk on the telephone.
More photosALEXANDER CITY, Ala. -- Terrell Owens doesn't get back home much anymore, but when he does, he's still the same ol' Terrell.
The same Terrell who did odd jobs around his high school coach's house to earn spending money. The same Terrell who won the Tallapoosa County spelling bee. The same Terrell who was a puny backup receiver at Benjamin Russell High School.
The T.O. that NFL fans know -- a touchdown-scoring, celebration-inventing, controversy-making star who signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Cowboys this off-season after talking his way out of Philadelphia -- is not Alexander City's Terrell.
"He gets a lot of bad press now, and some of it rightfully so...but I don't know anything negative about him," said Steve Savarese, the former head football coach at Benjamin Russell High. "He was never ugly. He was never disrespectful. People who care about him, he cares about them. I never, ever had a problem with him.
"He's such a competitor. That's his No. 1 asset, his competitive spirit, and he's always had that. But the game he plays now is such a brutal game. He tries to have a little fun doing it, and I think it's misconstrued sometimes."
Alex City loves, reveres and defends Owens. But there's no signage proclaiming it his home.
The city limit sign at the edge of town instead touts Alexander City as "The Gateway to Lake Martin." The halls of the high school also fail to pay homage to Owens, who has never had his No. 80 Wildcats jersey retired.
No one is quite sure why.
The town is just as proud of fellow natives Lee Williams, a former All-American golfer at Auburn University who is in his first year as a professional; Scottie Vines, a receiver in his third season with the Detroit Lions; Jimmy "Red" Phillips, a first-round pick of the Los Angeles Rams in 1958 who played 10 NFL seasons; current Benjamin Russell coach Willie Carl Martin, who played in six Grey Cups and twice was all-league in his 10 Canadian Football League seasons; and Michael Goggans, a blue-chip tight end who signed with Auburn in the spring.
Good football players, it seems, are as numerous as the pine trees that dominate the landscape around Alex City, which is 60 miles south of Birmingham on U.S. Highway 280.
Giants second-year defensive end Justin Tuck and Ravens seventh-year defensive end Adalius Thomas went to nearby Central-Coosa County High, and Auburn has key players in Benjamin Russell High grads Marquies Gunn and Eric Brock. Eltoro Freeman, who will be a senior for the Wildcats this fall, is one of the nation's top-rated linebackers.
"High school football is big," said Martin, 55, who won a state championship in his first season as Benjamin Russell's head coach and has five playoff berths in his five seasons in charge. "It's a community event. There are people standing around the fence and sitting on the hill when the bus pulls up at our stadium on Friday night. It sends a chill down you."
The big break
Owens never was a star at Benjamin Russell. In fact, he hardly was a starter.
It took an illness to Ricky Morgan for Owens to crack the starting lineup during his senior season. When Morgan was hospitalized with pneumonia, Owens started and scored a touchdown in front of a Tennessee-Chattanooga recruiter there watching fellow receiver and close friend Derek Hall.
Morgan ended his senior season in the secondary. Owens ended up following Hall to UTC after the Division I-AA school offered Owens a partial scholarship. (A Pell Grant covered the rest of his expenses.)
"One thing led to another for him after that," Morgan said. "It still amazes me to see him playing on Sunday. Nowadays, I have a hard time convincing people I started over him. I mean, I'm only 5-8, 180 pounds. I don't have near the build that Terrell has."
Owens didn't have his build -- he's now 6-foot-3 and 226 pounds -- then either. He was only 6 foot, 175. "Skinny" is how he refers to his body back then. Basketball was his preferred sport.
Family matters
In his 2004 autobiography, Catch This! Going Deep With the NFL's Sharpest Weapon, Owens writes about a meeting with his mother, Marilyn Owens, and Savarese during his junior year that changed his life. It began his commitment to football and to weight training.
"It was because of her support," Savarese said of Owens' mother. "If she wasn't the strong person in his life, he very easily could have gone astray, because there was so much evil so very close to where he lived."
Marilyn was only 17 when she had Terrell, the first of her four children. Terrell did not learn his father's identity until he was 11 after he started showing interest in a girl across the street.
A neighbor, L.C. Russell, told Terrell he couldn't be interested in the girl, explaining that she was his half-sister. Owens said in his book that it took a while before he understood that Russell was his father.
Owens was reared by the heavy hand of his grandmother, Alice Black. Her small house on Emerson Street, no longer occupied by Owens' family, now has fresh green paint and a new porch. But it has the same, old gravel driveway Terrell rode his bicycle up and down because his grandmother wouldn't let him ride in the street.
Miss Alice always had the doors and windows to the house closed, and the drapes drawn. Her rules prevented the children from watching television or using the telephone, and they were allowed to leave the house only for school and church.
They earned a whipping for disobeying or talking back.
"Marilyn was a child having a child is what it was," said Gayle Humphrey, a retired teacher who taught both Terrell and his mother in her history classes. "So Miss Alice took them and raised them, and she was strict. But that was the best thing. She just wanted them to turn out right."
Marilyn Owens now splits time between Atlanta and her modest red brick house in Alexander City. Through Terrell's publicist, she declined an interview request. Miss Alice, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1997, lives in an assisted living facility in Talladega, Ala.
Heading home again
Terrell gets back to his roots only occasionally. He was on the sideline in December when Benjamin Russell lost to eventual state champion Homewood High 24-17 in the state semifinals.
"Home is home," Owens said at Valley Ranch last week. "It's where I grew up. At this point, I've kind of moved on, but my mom still lives there, and it's where we still call home."
When he is back, Owens still likes to hang out with the boys at the old Graham place on the corner of Robinson and Booker, and they still play pickup basketball at the Alexander City Housing Authority Youth and Adult Services Center.
"He's still one of us," said Fred Norris, the director of the recreation center. "He just blends in....To me, he's the same kid he was growing up."
Owens has contributed financially to the school district and to the Alexander City Housing Authority Youth and Adult Services Center. Norris would like to see Owens eventually sponsor the recreation facility that would be renamed after him.
"That's our goal," said Norris, a diehard Cowboys fan who has an Owens-signed 49ers photo on his office wall below his Cowboys memorabilia. "I've been trying to communicate that with him. He's still young, and when he settles down we're hoping he'll come down and do these things in the community. We would like him to come back and establish a business here, put his name on something."
The Russell legacy
As it is, the Russell name is on everything in Alexander City. There's the Russell Medical Center, the Adelia Russell Library, Russell Lands, Russell Home Decor, Russell Do-It Center and Russell Marine.
When Owens was growing up here, Russell Corp. employed some 8,000 of the city's 15,000 residents. Both his grandmother and his mother were shift workers in the textile mill, and Owens spent a summer as a box maker for the athletic apparel, shoes and sports equipment company. But Russell, which has called Alexander City home since 1902, has laid off more than 4,000 workers since 1998.
In April, billionaire investor Warren Buffett agreed to purchase Russell Corp., but the 3,000 or so workers still employed by the company in Alexander City are unsure what the $600 million acquisition means to them.
Competition from offshore textile plants, with their promise of cheap labor, has reduced the company's presence in Alex City, where Benjamin Russell started the company by making ladies underwear. It also has prompted Avondale Mills to put its denim plant in Alex City up for sale.
Though it hasn't been easy, the economy in Alex City is diversifying. New businesses with higher-paying jobs have relocated there in recent years.
Alex City also has become attractive to early retirees, with its 44,000-acre Lake Martin a huge selling point.
"City leaders recognized back 10 years ago that we needed to reinvent ourselves," said Susan Foy, the executive director of the Alexander City Chamber of Commerce. "It's not going to be textile-oriented like we've had in the past. We are moving into more of a service-oriented community."
A fresh start
Owens, like his hometown, is trying to reinvent himself. He sees his move to the Cowboys as a new start -- "chapter one," he calls it.
Although he has 716 catches for 10,535 yards and 101 touchdowns in his 10-year career, Owens was traded by the San Francisco 49ers and cut by the Philadelphia Eagles after burning bridges and alienating quarterbacks in both places. He said he has learned from his mistakes.
"Once I get on the field, I'll let my play do the talking," Owens said last week. "...Actions speak louder than words."
That's the only Terrell that Alex City knows.
"We were disappointed in some of his behavior," said Alex City Mayor Barbara Young, Owens' principal in fifth and sixth grade who remembers him as "one of those good ones.
"I remember the first time I saw him after he started all his drama. I said, 'Terrell, I'm a little bit disappointed with you. We never let you hot dog here.'...He said, 'Oh, Ms. Young, I'm just having fun.' But I think people were disenchanted for a while with him. We still love him, don't get me wrong, and we are hoping now that he's been given this chance, he's going to bring himself out of that, because that is not the true Terrell that we knew here."
By CHAREAN WILLIAMS
STAR-TELEGRAM STAFF WRITER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/EMILY MCLAIN
Terrell Owens' grandmother, Alice Black, raised him in this small house, where he wasn't allowed to watch television or talk on the telephone.
More photosALEXANDER CITY, Ala. -- Terrell Owens doesn't get back home much anymore, but when he does, he's still the same ol' Terrell.
The same Terrell who did odd jobs around his high school coach's house to earn spending money. The same Terrell who won the Tallapoosa County spelling bee. The same Terrell who was a puny backup receiver at Benjamin Russell High School.
The T.O. that NFL fans know -- a touchdown-scoring, celebration-inventing, controversy-making star who signed a three-year, $25 million contract with the Cowboys this off-season after talking his way out of Philadelphia -- is not Alexander City's Terrell.
"He gets a lot of bad press now, and some of it rightfully so...but I don't know anything negative about him," said Steve Savarese, the former head football coach at Benjamin Russell High. "He was never ugly. He was never disrespectful. People who care about him, he cares about them. I never, ever had a problem with him.
"He's such a competitor. That's his No. 1 asset, his competitive spirit, and he's always had that. But the game he plays now is such a brutal game. He tries to have a little fun doing it, and I think it's misconstrued sometimes."
Alex City loves, reveres and defends Owens. But there's no signage proclaiming it his home.
The city limit sign at the edge of town instead touts Alexander City as "The Gateway to Lake Martin." The halls of the high school also fail to pay homage to Owens, who has never had his No. 80 Wildcats jersey retired.
No one is quite sure why.
The town is just as proud of fellow natives Lee Williams, a former All-American golfer at Auburn University who is in his first year as a professional; Scottie Vines, a receiver in his third season with the Detroit Lions; Jimmy "Red" Phillips, a first-round pick of the Los Angeles Rams in 1958 who played 10 NFL seasons; current Benjamin Russell coach Willie Carl Martin, who played in six Grey Cups and twice was all-league in his 10 Canadian Football League seasons; and Michael Goggans, a blue-chip tight end who signed with Auburn in the spring.
Good football players, it seems, are as numerous as the pine trees that dominate the landscape around Alex City, which is 60 miles south of Birmingham on U.S. Highway 280.
Giants second-year defensive end Justin Tuck and Ravens seventh-year defensive end Adalius Thomas went to nearby Central-Coosa County High, and Auburn has key players in Benjamin Russell High grads Marquies Gunn and Eric Brock. Eltoro Freeman, who will be a senior for the Wildcats this fall, is one of the nation's top-rated linebackers.
"High school football is big," said Martin, 55, who won a state championship in his first season as Benjamin Russell's head coach and has five playoff berths in his five seasons in charge. "It's a community event. There are people standing around the fence and sitting on the hill when the bus pulls up at our stadium on Friday night. It sends a chill down you."
The big break
Owens never was a star at Benjamin Russell. In fact, he hardly was a starter.
It took an illness to Ricky Morgan for Owens to crack the starting lineup during his senior season. When Morgan was hospitalized with pneumonia, Owens started and scored a touchdown in front of a Tennessee-Chattanooga recruiter there watching fellow receiver and close friend Derek Hall.
Morgan ended his senior season in the secondary. Owens ended up following Hall to UTC after the Division I-AA school offered Owens a partial scholarship. (A Pell Grant covered the rest of his expenses.)
"One thing led to another for him after that," Morgan said. "It still amazes me to see him playing on Sunday. Nowadays, I have a hard time convincing people I started over him. I mean, I'm only 5-8, 180 pounds. I don't have near the build that Terrell has."
Owens didn't have his build -- he's now 6-foot-3 and 226 pounds -- then either. He was only 6 foot, 175. "Skinny" is how he refers to his body back then. Basketball was his preferred sport.
Family matters
In his 2004 autobiography, Catch This! Going Deep With the NFL's Sharpest Weapon, Owens writes about a meeting with his mother, Marilyn Owens, and Savarese during his junior year that changed his life. It began his commitment to football and to weight training.
"It was because of her support," Savarese said of Owens' mother. "If she wasn't the strong person in his life, he very easily could have gone astray, because there was so much evil so very close to where he lived."
Marilyn was only 17 when she had Terrell, the first of her four children. Terrell did not learn his father's identity until he was 11 after he started showing interest in a girl across the street.
A neighbor, L.C. Russell, told Terrell he couldn't be interested in the girl, explaining that she was his half-sister. Owens said in his book that it took a while before he understood that Russell was his father.
Owens was reared by the heavy hand of his grandmother, Alice Black. Her small house on Emerson Street, no longer occupied by Owens' family, now has fresh green paint and a new porch. But it has the same, old gravel driveway Terrell rode his bicycle up and down because his grandmother wouldn't let him ride in the street.
Miss Alice always had the doors and windows to the house closed, and the drapes drawn. Her rules prevented the children from watching television or using the telephone, and they were allowed to leave the house only for school and church.
They earned a whipping for disobeying or talking back.
"Marilyn was a child having a child is what it was," said Gayle Humphrey, a retired teacher who taught both Terrell and his mother in her history classes. "So Miss Alice took them and raised them, and she was strict. But that was the best thing. She just wanted them to turn out right."
Marilyn Owens now splits time between Atlanta and her modest red brick house in Alexander City. Through Terrell's publicist, she declined an interview request. Miss Alice, diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease in 1997, lives in an assisted living facility in Talladega, Ala.
Heading home again
Terrell gets back to his roots only occasionally. He was on the sideline in December when Benjamin Russell lost to eventual state champion Homewood High 24-17 in the state semifinals.
"Home is home," Owens said at Valley Ranch last week. "It's where I grew up. At this point, I've kind of moved on, but my mom still lives there, and it's where we still call home."
When he is back, Owens still likes to hang out with the boys at the old Graham place on the corner of Robinson and Booker, and they still play pickup basketball at the Alexander City Housing Authority Youth and Adult Services Center.
"He's still one of us," said Fred Norris, the director of the recreation center. "He just blends in....To me, he's the same kid he was growing up."
Owens has contributed financially to the school district and to the Alexander City Housing Authority Youth and Adult Services Center. Norris would like to see Owens eventually sponsor the recreation facility that would be renamed after him.
"That's our goal," said Norris, a diehard Cowboys fan who has an Owens-signed 49ers photo on his office wall below his Cowboys memorabilia. "I've been trying to communicate that with him. He's still young, and when he settles down we're hoping he'll come down and do these things in the community. We would like him to come back and establish a business here, put his name on something."
The Russell legacy
As it is, the Russell name is on everything in Alexander City. There's the Russell Medical Center, the Adelia Russell Library, Russell Lands, Russell Home Decor, Russell Do-It Center and Russell Marine.
When Owens was growing up here, Russell Corp. employed some 8,000 of the city's 15,000 residents. Both his grandmother and his mother were shift workers in the textile mill, and Owens spent a summer as a box maker for the athletic apparel, shoes and sports equipment company. But Russell, which has called Alexander City home since 1902, has laid off more than 4,000 workers since 1998.
In April, billionaire investor Warren Buffett agreed to purchase Russell Corp., but the 3,000 or so workers still employed by the company in Alexander City are unsure what the $600 million acquisition means to them.
Competition from offshore textile plants, with their promise of cheap labor, has reduced the company's presence in Alex City, where Benjamin Russell started the company by making ladies underwear. It also has prompted Avondale Mills to put its denim plant in Alex City up for sale.
Though it hasn't been easy, the economy in Alex City is diversifying. New businesses with higher-paying jobs have relocated there in recent years.
Alex City also has become attractive to early retirees, with its 44,000-acre Lake Martin a huge selling point.
"City leaders recognized back 10 years ago that we needed to reinvent ourselves," said Susan Foy, the executive director of the Alexander City Chamber of Commerce. "It's not going to be textile-oriented like we've had in the past. We are moving into more of a service-oriented community."
A fresh start
Owens, like his hometown, is trying to reinvent himself. He sees his move to the Cowboys as a new start -- "chapter one," he calls it.
Although he has 716 catches for 10,535 yards and 101 touchdowns in his 10-year career, Owens was traded by the San Francisco 49ers and cut by the Philadelphia Eagles after burning bridges and alienating quarterbacks in both places. He said he has learned from his mistakes.
"Once I get on the field, I'll let my play do the talking," Owens said last week. "...Actions speak louder than words."
That's the only Terrell that Alex City knows.
"We were disappointed in some of his behavior," said Alex City Mayor Barbara Young, Owens' principal in fifth and sixth grade who remembers him as "one of those good ones.
"I remember the first time I saw him after he started all his drama. I said, 'Terrell, I'm a little bit disappointed with you. We never let you hot dog here.'...He said, 'Oh, Ms. Young, I'm just having fun.' But I think people were disenchanted for a while with him. We still love him, don't get me wrong, and we are hoping now that he's been given this chance, he's going to bring himself out of that, because that is not the true Terrell that we knew here."
posted by The Gryphon at 7:26 PM
<< Home