Owens on Owens

After 14 years of being misunderstood by teammates, fans and the general public, Terrell Owens sits down and opens up to the one person who knows him best—himself.

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“I knew guys in high school who drank beer and all that,” Owens said to the teenaged weight room audience before him. “I knew all that stuff, but I didn’t do it because my grandmother and mother told me ‘don’t follow the crowd’.” Family is paramount with Terrell Owens. Nowhere is this more evident than in his relationship with his grandmother.

The woman who, as Owens says, supported him throughout the years, now needs his support. Owens’ grandmother suffers from Alzheimer’s Disease which is the most common form of dementia currently affecting over 5.3 million Americans. Memory loss is a dominant characteristic of the disease. Though she falls into that large category, she is not just another statistic to Owens. In the same episode where Owens calmly talks to the youth, he is reduced to tears attempting to verbally reach the matriarch of his family.

“No matter what, whether I’m playing football or not, I’m always going to be someway or somehow involved with Alzheimer’s. The disease doesn’t go away and I treat my involvement the same way—I’m not going to go away,” Owens says verbally placing weight on each word. Along with journalist and wife of Governor Schwarzenegger Maria Shriver, Owens has helped to raise awareness on the disease and looks to continue efforts to raise funds for research. “I’m not just going to give my time just because I’m in the limelight. Out of my heart, I just feel like it is the right thing to do.”

The lifetime of an NFL play lasts a matter of seconds. Owens understands that life is larger than Sunday’s televised four-quarter scrum. Many foresee Owens handing in his playbook and quietly awaiting his first-ballot selection to Canton in the near future. Thinking independently from what is printed about him, Owens proceeds by faith and not by sight. “Only God knows. I’m not really looking any further,” Owens says. “Just trying to go with the flow of this year and see where I land next year.”