Terrell Owens left a legacy on the NFL that is right up there with the best of the best. His numbers don’t lie and although his Hall of Fame induction came much later than he deserved, the NFL writers had to do the right thing an induct him. We all know T.O’s outspoken nature is what led to him being snubbed initially and he knew it too which is why he boycotted and didn’t show up to his own Hall of Fame induction ceremony. Fast forward a few years later, T.O is still speaking his truth.
Terrell Owens today said he experienced racist treatment from coaches while playing for the San Francisco 49ers. The NFL Hall of Famer made the remarks at the 30,000-attendee online conference Collision from Home, produced by the team behind Web Summit – the world’s largest tech conference.
NFL Hall of Famer Owens, who played for the 49ers from 1996-2003, spoke of being raised by his grandmother who grew up in segregation-era Alabama, saying, “I listened to her talk about what it was like to grow up in that time. She prepared me, indirectly, for what I had to go through and what I was going to see as I got older.”
“I saw that with some of the encounters I had with certain coaches, especially in San Francisco, just instances of how I was being treated versus other players. Had I gone out and I said some of those things, then people would’ve looked at me because of who I was at that time, like, ‘Oh, he’s race-baiting. Why does race have to always factor in something?”
“But the reality is, it does. It’s why we’re talking about systemic racism. Because you have white people in positions of power, whether it’s coaches, whether it’s GMs, whether it’s owners, whether it’s in the political realm. That’s where it starts,” he said.
Owens said there is “no earthly reason” why black people and people of colour shouldn’t support the Black Lives Matter movement, and spoke of the recent death of George Floyd, as well as the death of unarmed African-American Ahmaud Arbery in Glynn County, Georgia.
“The system is failing us. And it has failed us as a black race for so many years. And it’s so unfortunate that it has come to George Floyd’s death to really open the eyes of America, because now America sees what it’s like to be a black person or a person of colour in America.”
“You’ve seen it with the recent events of Ahmaud Arbery being shot… These are things that are uncalled for,” said Owens.
