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Terrell Owens' Suicide Attempt Highlights Major Male Sports Taboo
by Christopher McIntosh
09/27/2006
Terrell Owens attempted to commit suicide.
Yes, that Terrell Owens.
He also, apparently, was depressed.
Well, duh, I can hear some of you saying. Of course he was depressed. What else would prompt you to try to off yourself?
But how could he be depressed? He has everything. Money, fame, a body produced by a work ethic that rivals anyone else in the game. A war story that will never be forgotten no matter how ignominious his press conference with Drew Rosenhaus was - an equally talented, arrogant to the point of self-parody, luminary in his field. Alternatively maddening and envied, Rosenhaus would achieve his goals by any means necessary. Rarely did he fail.
Even if it meant embarrassing himself and his client in the process.
TO played hurt in the Eagles Super Bowl. His relationship, once apparently close - at least on the field - with Donovan McNabb, was in shambles. With parts of his body equally in shambles, he risked his career for a ring.
Despite the risk he tried to carry himself and his team to victory. And damned if he didn't almost do it.
Depressed? This chiseled, pampered, enigma of a wide receiver was a simultaneously maddening player capable of turning a team around merely by his presence. He's the prototype for the narcissist wide receiver who is immensely talented, flamboyant, and polarizing.
Defensible when he's on your team. Not so much for everyone else.
Kind of like Bonds, without the surliness and the whole cheating thing.
There are two great taboos left in major male sports.
Being openly gay.
Being mentally ill.
Quick, name someone you know who is gay.
Now, name someone you know struggling with a mental illness like depression or at least sees a therapist/psychologist on a regular basis.
I doubt any of you came up empty on both counts.
But turn to sports - collegiate or otherwise - and the list gets a whole lot smaller. The only one I can think of offhand is Tim Howard, a goalkeeper in the Premiership who has Tourette's Syndrome.
Not to take anything away from his struggle, but as far as social acceptance goes, it's fairly innocuous.
Depression is not a mood. It's not the feeling you get on Monday after your team squanders a lead in the fourth quarter or your girlfriend dumps you for the guy with the Ferrari.
It's a disorder. It effects people both mentally and biologically. Medication is frequently required to treat it.
Approximately 1-3% of the American public suffers from it.
Up to 15% of those clinically depressed die by suicide. In 1996 alone there were more than half a million suicide attempts.
In 1997 alone more than 30,000 people died by suicide.
Disorders, diseases, illnesses--just like physical ailments (colds, flu, broken legs)--can strike anyone, regardless of social position, class, or race.
A close family friend, affluent with a seemingly normal family and zero history of mental problems, waited for his wife to go on a business trip, walked out into his back yard and shot himself. The note he left didn't help to explain what was already inexplicable.
Why did it happen? No one will ever know. Didn't seem to be strictly mental or psychological.
Also, sadly, it wasn't exactly - sociologically speaking - an exceptional event.
What, if reports are correct, struck down Owens was strictly speaking, not caused entirely by his position, his environment, the pressure on him, the adjustment to life in Dallas under Bill Parcells, but had an inextricable biological element that he could not control.
No one is immune.
How many people know the back story of TO?
One author, writing in the wake of the disastrous press conference led by Mr. Rosenhaus characterized TO's situation in the following way:
The truth of the matter is that the moody, intense player has long yearned for greater recognition and remuneration. He is adolescent in his attempts to obtain them.
Tuesday's transparent spin job was a pitiful moment, a mercenary tactic that smacked of desperation, despair and disingenuousness. We would say it reminded us of the movie Jerry Maguire, except that it was neither funny nor heartwarming, though it did remind us of Cuba Gooding Jr.'s character, Rod Tidwell, scolding his agent.
"I got a shelf life of 10 years, tops. My next contract's gotta bring me the dollars that'll last me and mine a long time. I'm out of this sport in five years. What's my family gonna live on, huh?"
The Eagles had me at, "Goodbye, T.O."
Why didn't anyone ask why he was moody? Why he's longed for greater recognition and remuneration? In the most unintentionally insightful comment this author made, why was he "adolescent in his attempts to obtain them"?
His own hometown loves and reveres him, but will not put up official signage referring to the town as his home. His high school will not put him in the Hall of Fame.
He never found out who his father was until he fell for the girl across the street. He was told to leave her alone.
He didn't know she was his half-sister.
His mother was 17 when she had him and shipped him off to his grandmother to live, a woman named Alice Black.
Alice turned her house into a cave - drawing the drapes and keeping the windows shut. No TV, no telephone, and they were only allowed to leave this place for school and church.
According to a story in the St. Louis Post Dispatch, disobeying or talking back earned him a whipping.
So, do you think this man had the opportunity to live out his "adolescence"? To make the mistakes we all learn from in high school and never make again? Maybe, maybe not.
We don't know. We do know the pressure on him was immense at Dallas, he was heralded as the savior, but his coach would not even refer to him by name in press conferences.
But ultimately the speculation is all irrelevant. The story of TO's brush with death tells me two things.
No matter how many magazines we read, newspaper articles we consume, message boards we surf, we never can truly know the athletes we think we know backwards and forwards.
More importantly, it tells me that mental illness can strike anyone, regardless of position. Millions of people look up to major athletes. college football, the NFL, MLB, the NBA, their players are all heroes for children and adults, men and women.
I hope that his experience can break the taboo.
If at least one kid, one fan, one fantasy player sees his experience and decides to say, "enough", I'm going to deal with this issue as if it were chest pain or a broken leg, maybe something good will come out of this.
But mostly, I just hope that TO gets better.
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