PACKERS HELPED BIRTH LEGEND OF T.O. - He said it.

[woodbuck27]

PACKERS HELPED BIRTH LEGEND OF T.O.

By Bob Wolfley / jsonline.com


For you Green Bay Packers fans who believe that Dallas Cowboys receiver Terrell Owens is the pastor of the Wonder of Me Church where many contemporary athletes worship, you're going to be disappointed about what he says in his new book, "T.O.," written with Jason Rosenhaus.

Owens writes that if it wasn't for one particular game, one moment in one particular game, he would not have become T.O., the irresistible football force, the immovable cultural icon he is today. Without this moment, he'd be plain old Terrell trying to eke out a shabby existence somewhere, instead of the magnificent specimen of achievement in the National Football League he has come to represent. This moment freed him to become the colossus he was destined to become. Without this moment, there would be no book.

Yes, Packers fans, your team is the one that caused T.O. to become all that he has become. Who is to blame for giving birth to T.O.? Say it ain't so, T.O.

The Green Bay Packers.

"That game changed my career," Owens writes about the San Francisco 49ers' victory over the Packers on Jan. 3, 1999. "That one play turned me into a hero set on a path toward stardom. One play can really mean that much. This game is very unforgiving, and all it takes is one play to haunt a player for the remainder of his career. At the same time, one catch can make a player into a hero forever."

Owens is referring to the playoff game at 3Com Park in his third season, when he caught a 25-yard touchdown pass from Steve Young with 3 seconds left in the game to beat the Packers, 30-27. "I gained a tremendous amount of confidence in myself and knew deep down now that I was a winner!" Owens writes. (EDIT: TO convienently forgets the 4 or 5 dropped balls he had before 'that' catch... he had a horrible game outside that one catch!)

The play that resulted in the touchdown was called the "all go double comeback" play, which "was designed for two receivers on the outside to run straight into the end zone by the sidelines and for two other receivers to slant inside toward the middle of the end zone," Owens writes. Young had called the same play earlier, he says, and thrown to J.J. Stokes. Young called it again. Owens was having a terrible day with four dropped passes (EDIT: Yeah... see! I knew there were at least 4) and a fumble. He had sprouted horns as the game's goat and was slouching to oblivion. "When I got to the huddle, Steve looked at me when he called the play and I knew what he was thinking," Owens writes. He ran the route to the inside.

"I wanted that ball like I never wanted anything in my life," Owens writes. "No one was going to stop me. As I jumped for it, I could see nothing but the ball, while the two defenders were coming to take my head off from both sides. They could have been armed with baseball bats and I was still going to get that ball. I made the catch! I scored! We won! Game over!"

For the record, the Packers defenders were safeties Darren Sharper and Pat Terrell. After the game, Sharper acknowledged he should have been in position to make a play on the ball. Packers fans, if they are so inclined, can also blame the referees for creating the phenomenon now known as T.O. Jerry Rice's only catch of the game, a 6-yarder with 46 seconds left, was really a fumble that Packers linebacker Bernardo Harris recovered. But there was no fumble call. Maybe that's the best way out of this, green and gold nation.

Yeah, the refs. The Packers didn't create the blight known as T.O., the refs did.

Yeah, that's it.

The refs.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=4Bw92WM03vI&mode=related&search=Terrell%20Owens

comments: For your convenience I provide the link above, if you choose to see it all again. woodbuck27

[esoxx]

[

Yes, Packers fans, your team is the one that caused T.O. to become all that he has become. Who is to blame for giving birth to T.O.? Say it ain't so, T.O.

The Green Bay Packers.




This is one time I'd definitely be in favor of abortion.

[TravisWilliams23]

This story and 4th & 26 are 2 main reasons I wasn't unhappy to see
Sharper leave the Pack.

[Merlin]

That 49er's game was a forgone conclusion when the refs game the game to them. Rice fumbled on his only catch of the game, we recovered, game over. T.O. then got his chance to not be the scape goat after dropping a pile of passes. It took a lot for Young to throw him the ball on that play and if I was Sharper, I wouldn't have paid him much attention either, the guy couldn't catch. The reason I am glad Sharper is gone is reflected in his performance last year for the Vikings. "Look at me I picked off the pass!" then blow coverage and miss tackles the rest of the time then get hurt half way through the season. I think in only one of the Sharper's interceptions he actually made the interception, the rest were thrown right at him. Nothing he did won games for the Vikings, it's all about him. The same for when he was with us. Sure he got turnovers but can anyone remember when the guy did anything that actually saved or won a game for us? I can't.

[woodbuck27]

"Sure he 9Darren Sharper) got turnovers but can anyone remember when the guy did anything that actually saved or won a game for us? I can't." MerlinWizard222

Yes I agree.

Contrast the memory of Darren Sharper with the gutsy play of Mike McKenzie in the 4-26 game - when Donovan Mcnabb was driving in the last series to eventually tie the game and made about three plays (pass's) in the area that MM covered and he (MM) did everything but make the pick.

I couldn't believe the way he hung in at left CB on those plays. He was outstanding and nearly prevented the Eagles eventual win.

McNabb was playing like a bonehead, tossing to the endzone for six and was fortunate just to get in position for that FG.

Mike McKenzie showed alot of wanna win on that ocassion. He certainly showed me he could cover. There's never much talk about what MM was trying to, and almost succeeding to do in that game.

[woodbuck27]

How a shy country boy became T.O.

Friends see more to Owens than outspoken, arrogant persona


11:08 AM CDT on Monday, July 10, 2006

By JEAN-JACQUES TAYLOR / The Dallas Morning News


SAN FRANCISCO – This is where the country boy from Alexander City, Ala., became a man.

It's where Terrell Owens shed the hand-sewn clothes made by his mother and began wearing tailored suits with matching shoes of exotic animal skins. The Bay Area is where this child of poverty purchased a five-bedroom, 4,400-square-foot home for more than $1 million and became a father.

This is where he became two people: Terrell Owens, a star in the National Football League, and T.O., the game's most notorious player.

Here among the picturesque views of San Francisco Bay and the wine country's rolling hills, plenty of people have fond memories of Terrell Owens. It's more difficult to find out about T.O., the outspoken, arrogant persona that seems drawn to controversy like a sommelier to Napa Valley.

No consensus exists concerning the time and date Mr. Owens morphed into T.O.

He says it happened his rookie year, when against Cincinnati, he scored his first career touchdown and danced in the end zone, a signal to his mother that he had arrived as a professional.

Others say they noticed a change in his third season, after he caught a 25-yard touchdown pass with three seconds left in an NFC divisional playoff game.

Or maybe it didn't happen until Mr. Owens, whose mother worked double shifts at a textile mill to support her three children, signed a seven-year, $35 million contract that included a $7.5 million bonus after the 1999 season.

"He's a complex person, and a lot of his personality is built on how he was brought up and sheltered as a kid," said Kirk Reynolds, the San Francisco 49ers' public relations director from 1997 to 2005.


DAVID PAUL MORRIS/Special Contributor

J.J. Stokes (right), Terrell Owens' teammate with the 49ers, says he learned what makes his fellow wide receiver tick over late-night dominos games at the team's practice facility. "The people who take the time to try and understand what T.O. is like and what he's thinking and trying to do tend to get along with him pretty well."


'He wants respect'

Mr. Owens resides in a world devoid of gray. You're right or wrong, with him or against him.

Betray him – whether it's real or perceived – and the relationship ends.

"The closer you get to him, the more trust and loyalty he has to you," said Derrick Deese, a guard-tackle with the 49ers from 1992 to 2003. "You stab him in the back, and he's done with you. He's not going to give too many second chances because he doesn't want to get burned twice by the same match."


Friends say Cowboys wide receiver Terrell Owens is fiercely loyal - but quick to cut the cord when he feels betrayed. Mr. Owens, playing for his third team in four seasons, is three weeks from his first training camp with the Cowboys. His tenure with his previous two employers ended in ugly and dramatic fashion.

To avoid that fate, Cowboys coach Bill Parcells and owner Jerry Jones must understand Mr. Owens' view of the world. Some former teammates and 49ers officials who spent the most time with Mr. Owens during his eight years in San Francisco provide insight into his personality.

"He wants respect. He craves it from his peers because he never got it as a child because he was always being ridiculed. Now's his chance to say he has arrived," said former 49ers receivers coach George Stewart, an assistant with the Atlanta Falcons. "Names don't impress him. Bill Parcells, Jerry Rice, George Bush. All he wants is respect. It's not who you are but what you do that's important to him."

Those closest to Mr. Owens say he makes no apologies for his attitude. They say it's his way of insulating himself against a world that scorned him as a child and the result of being raised by his grandmother in a household where he was confined to the front yard and Wheel of Fortune was the only TV program allowed.

"He lives in a world of strict, unforgiving lines. They are hard lines. He doesn't accept excuses or explanations," said Dr. Harry Edwards, a nationally respected sociologist whose work as a consultant with the 49ers spans three decades.

"At one level, that's good, because he's not going to bring you drug problems or women problems because there are lines he isn't going to cross. At another level, it's not as good."


Feeling betrayed

The negative manifestations of that philosophy are behind Mr. Owens' fractured relationships with former San Francisco 49ers coach Steve Mariucci and Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb.

Friends of Mr. Owens say he thought Mr. Mariucci betrayed him when the club suspended him for a week after he celebrated touchdowns on the midfield logo at Texas Stadium in a 2000 win over the Cowboys. In his new book, T.O., Mr. Owens wrote that his relationship with Mr. McNabb began deteriorating after the quarterback told the receiver to shut up during a huddle.

Perceived slights by Cris Collinsworth at Fox and Joe Theismann at ESPN are why, Mr. Reynolds said, Mr. Owens refused to participate in pregame production meetings with the networks.

"He's just not socially experienced because of his childhood," said Gary Plummer, who played three of his 15 NFL seasons with the 49ers and works on its radio broadcasts. "He has a lot of good qualities. He just doesn't always display them."

Mr. Owens showed Mr. Plummer a softer side before the final game of the 2001 season, when he learned Mr. Plummer's teenage son, Garrett, had been accidentally shot in the eye with a pellet gun.

"He came up to me in the stadium and tried to help me through it as much as possible," Mr. Plummer said. "He said a prayer for me and then started crying as he told me that he'd be there for Garrett. Then he dedicated the game to him."

Mr. Owens had 116 yards receiving and two touchdowns in a 38-0 victory over New Orleans. "Garrett had been a little bit of a rebel and always admired T.O.," Mr. Plummer said. "By the time I got to the hospital [after the game], T.O. had already called him."

A few weeks later, Mr. Owens' game ball arrived at Mr. Plummer's home. Mr. Owens forged close relationships with Mr. Deese, guard Ron Stone and receiver J.J. Stokes during late-night dominos games at the club's practice facility, with tiles slamming against a table and raucous laughter as a soundtrack. This is where Mr. Owens' teammates learned about the torment he suffered as a child because his skin was dark. And his frame lacked muscle. And his teeth needed braces.

It's where Mr. Owens revealed his views on women and life and football. This is where Mr. Owens removed the shroud covering his emotions.


The other side of Owens

"We'd be playing, and T.O. would have videos of Michael Jordan or Muhammad Ali playing in the background," said Mr. Stokes, a former No. 1 pick who played for the 49ers from 1995 to 2002. "You could see him absorbing their mind-set while we were playing games. You could see him thinking he could take his game in the NFL where they took their game in basketball and boxing."

The games weren't as important as the bonds forged during those hours.

"It was more than two or three guys playing dominos. It was guys sharing their lives and interacting," Mr. Deese said. "That's why I can say things about him. I know him."

The guys involved with the dominos games claim little knowledge of the player accused of single-handedly destroying Philadelphia's team last season. They recall Mr. Owens answering questions from coaches and teammates with "yes sir, no sir." They remember a shy player who sat quietly at his locker, his head buried in a playbook early in his career.

They talk about the guy who once gave Fred Beasley, then a rookie fullback, $4,500 to cover a fine for being late to a meeting, and who wrote a $10,000 check to an intern in the equipment department to help him care for his new baby.

There were impromptu gatherings at his home in Fremont, 40 miles east of San Francisco, to play pool or go swimming and occasional dinner parties with catered fried chicken and catfish and collard greens.

That sounds like Terrell – not T.O., who can be moody and confrontational.

He eschews political correctness, in part, because his grandmother demanded he tell the truth, no matter the consequences, as a child. Honesty, however, isn't always the best policy in a locker room filled with fragile egos and the tension and emotion of a 16-game season.

T.O. said his San Francisco teammates quit in a 2000 loss to Carolina and accused Mr. Mariucci of using a conservative game plan to ensure that the 49ers didn't blow out Chicago, which rallied from a large deficit to win, because he didn't want to embarrass his friend, Bears coach Dick Jauron.


Learning from a legend

Mr. Owens wore No. 80 at Benjamin Russell High School because he idolized 49ers receiver Jerry Rice. When San Francisco made Mr. Owens the 89th player – the 11th receiver – selected in the 1996 draft, he was thrilled to be playing with Mr. Rice, the standard against whom all receivers are judged.

Mr. Rice, who retired last season, has the most catches (1,549), yards (22,895) and touchdowns (197) in NFL history. He did it with a combination of talent and work ethic.

"He wouldn't even let other guys get repetitions in practice," said Dr. Edwards, "because he wanted all of them."

Mr. Rice demanded the ball. Loudly. At times, profanely.

"Jerry ... cussed out Mariucci on the sideline in front of everybody," Mr. Stewart said. "Jerry did that frequently, but a lot of people overlooked it. Jerry, though, would also go apologize the next day."

Mr. Owens noticed Mr. Rice's behavior. "Is that how y'all want me to act, Stew?" Mr. Owens asked his position coach after the incident.

"No," Mr. Stewart replied.

But sideline temper tantrums have been a consistent pattern of behavior during Mr. Owens' rise to prominence.

Mr. Owens had a sideline meltdown with offensive coordinator Greg Knapp in Week 4. It was his second in the first month of the season.

Mr. Stewart saw the highlights on ESPN.

"I called Terrell and told him to be in Knapp's office at 7 a.m. the next morning to apologize," Mr. Stewart said. "When my phone rang the next morning, it was Greg Knapp."

"Stew, thank you," Mr. Knapp said.

While Mr. Owens' sideline blowups are well-chronicled, they are not unique. Michael Irvin had plenty of them with the Cowboys. So did Keyshawn Johnson.

"When T.O. got mad on the sideline, people said he was selfish. When Jerry did it, they talked about how much he loved the game," Mr. Deese said. The skill set is why T.O. has played in five of the last six Pro Bowls, averaging 89 catches, 1,293 yards and 13 touchdowns from 2000 to 2004.

"He plays with a certain ferocity on the field, and that's part of what makes him so good," Dr. Edwards said. "When he doesn't get the ball, that ferocity is turned on the people – head coaches, assistant coaches, quarterbacks – who aren't getting him the ball."

[woodbuck27]

A Review of T.O.'s book:

A perfect summer romance: T.O. on T.O.

By Jim Reeves
Star-Telegram Staff Writer

Just what Bill Parcells needed this summer...a little light reading.

And I do mean light.

Settled in with T.O. at about 10:30 Thursday night and, three hours and two pots of coffee later, had knocked it out, all 242 pages of it. Believe me, that says far less about my speed-reading ability than it does the extent of my insomnia and the fact that Terrell Owens' autobiography has lots (and lots!) of short words in it.

Words like "I" and "me."

It's a love story, of course.

Boy (Owens) meets boy (T.O.) and falls in love. They live happily ever after while making everyone else around them miserable.

That's the part that should trouble Big Bill.

I found the book, ghostwritten with Jason Rosenhaus (brother of T.O.'s agent Drew), at my local Wal-Mart, which apparently jumped the release date by about five days. Not that the store was making a big deal of it. I was expecting a can't-miss-this display in the middle of the center aisle. Instead, it was hidden innocuously between editions of new diet books and re-releases of The Da Vinci Code.

I can assure you that T.O. is far less complicated and with an easy-to-figure-out plot: Owens is always right; everyone else is always wrong.

If you're expecting insight, new revelations of T.O.'s stormy relationship with Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb or other juicy tidbits, you'll be sadly disappointed. This is little more than a self-serving, completely one-sided whine about how the whole world is aligned against poor T.O.

Nothing that happened, from the breakdown of his relationship with McNabb, to his locker-room fight with Hugh Douglas, to his suspension by the Eagles, is ever his fault. And on the rare occasion when he does admit to some culpability, he trots out the Kenny Rogers excuse: Yeah, well, maybe I was wrong, but I wouldn't have done that if people hadn't made me upset.

Owens won't even accept responsibility for his infamous shot at McNabb after the Eagles' Super Bowl loss to New England, the one in which he told ESPN.com's Len Pasquarelli, "I wasn't the guy who got tired in the Super Bowl."

In his book, Owens expresses shock to media response to that line.

"The next day, the papers all said I took a shot at Donovan," he [or Rosenhaus] writes. "I didn't mention Donovan's name, but they all assumed I meant Donovan [imagine that]. I talked to Len for a while and said a lot of things to him. That one last sentence was all anybody noticed. I didn't go into that conversation thinking that I was going to say something negative about Donovan. I admit that it looks that way. I admit that at the time, I was angry with Donovan, but when Len asked me if I was talking about Donovan, I would not say I meant Donovan.

"...I did not say, 'Donovan got tired at the Super Bowl,' nor was it my intent to do so. To understand what I meant, you have to understand how I communicate. The best way to describe it is that I operate like a sponge. I soak up what's around me and when pressed, I let out what I took in."

The mentality of a sponge...now that may be as close to a grain of truth as you'll find anywhere in this book, which I doubt even T.O. has read cover to cover.

Or as Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Phil Sheridan noted Thursday, "How many books do you think Owens has read in the last three years? Is there any chance he's read as many [two] as he's had published?"

Sheridan and the rest of the Philadelphia media are righteously up in arms about the book, claiming it's another Owens grenade hurled at the Eagles and their fine city, which is a bit paranoid in and of itself, but somewhat understandable. Owens is described in Sheridan's column as a "no-class, no-clue team-wrecker," a "sociopath" and a "human toxic-waste spill." And those were the nice parts.

I didn't find the book quite so outrageous, merely tedious, repetitive and boring.

How many times can you read one guy saying, "Look, I'm great and you're not" before you start yawning and heading to the kitchen for another cup of coffee?

But Sheridan is right about one thing. There's enough revealed in here about Owens' character, or lack thereof, that should worry the Cowboys.

And, at the risk of spoiling the ending, it should also worry Cowboys fans that in the final chapter, as T.O. describes his signing with the Cowboys, very little is said about Parcells' involvement. Instead, as suspected, it's all Jerry Jones.

"As we sat across from each other on [Jones' private] jet, I watched this self-made multimillionaire tell me that this was one of the happiest days of his career....He explained to me that he had had his share of ups and downs in his life; there were times when he first started with the Cowboys that he was vilified, and he knew what it was like to be treated like Darth Vader."

He will, Owens vows, try to make the Cowboys look like geniuses for signing him by leading them to the Super Bowl in Miami next February. But what makes him really happy is that his contract is for only three years, giving him another opportunity to cash in on yet one more big free-agent contract.

Like I said, it's a love story.

When T.O. says he "loves me some me," he's not kidding.

[4and12to12and4]

Wow. It sucked watching that drive again. It infuriates me even now that the refs blew that game for us. I remember bitching with my friend about why we need instant replay, we had been wanting the league to implement some kind of system for that for years. That call would have obviously been overturned. But, those types of screw-ups in crucial moments that the league went back and looked at are why they eventually did bring instant replay into games. I don't blame Sharper for that play, the ball was right on the money, and Steve Young was one of the best at his position (not to mention TO). How can we bash Sharper for that when, the play should've never even happened. The defense did their job against a very powerful offense, and we got screwed by a bad call. End of story.

[woodbuck27]

"I don't blame Sharper for that play, the ball was right on the money," 4and12to12and4

Yup ! That pass was right there and T.O. was where he had to be just across the line and in a solid possession when he got jack-knifed. He had a grip on that ball, like a baby on a bottle.

That catch may have been simply 'destiny'.

The missed ref's call on the Rice fumble - fate before the heartache for us.

Really an outstanding series to review over and over, as there is alot to learn from it.

[The Shadow]

Why is everyone a 'LEGEND' nowadays?
Why can't 95% of modern sports figures be simply 'great players' - without the 'legends' tag?
Babe Ruth & Ty Cobb were baseball legends.
Muhammad Ali, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, & Rocky Marciano were boxing legends.
Red Grange, Johnny Unitas, & Jim Brown were football legends.

Owens is simply a fine wide receiver - and a first class pain in the ass.

Legend?????
No.

[woodbuck27]

http://graphics.jsonline.com/graphics/packer/img/news/jul06/tto708.jpg

Here is a pic of that infamous TD for us.

Great shot of the position of Darren Sharper over and behind Terrell Owens - just as T.O. hits the ground.

T.O. has a death grip on that ball. I can laugh now but back then. . . .uuuuurrrrrgggghhhh !