The Tao of T.O.
November 18, 2005
Had enough of Terrell Owens? The suspended Philadelphia Eagles wide receiver (and former San Francisco 49er) goes before an arbitrator Nov.18, to solve his nasty labor and style dispute with his current team.
And just when you think you’ve heard just about everything on the subject, let me offer a fresh perspective.
What if T.O. were an Asian American?
What if T.O. had a touch of Tao –– that sensibility central to Asian philosophy, knowledge and religion, translated generally as “The Way.”
Would Owens be so lost now as he tries to find his way back onto the playing field?
More importantly, would he have so many touchdowns? (He’d certainly have a better math SAT score.)
It’s hard to imagine a star Asian pro in the U.S. like a Yao in basketball or an Ichiro in baseball trash talking or making themselves be the equal of their stats.
Yao stayed calm all throughout Shaquille O’Neal’s racist taunting a few years back. Ichiro is so quiet, I don’t even know what he sounds like.
It seems that only his bat talks.
If T.O. were Asian, no doubt, the whole story would be minimized considering what passes for news these days. Let’s see, there’s the distraught man who found his butt glued to a toilet at a Home Depot. There’s another guy who sued a girlfriend for gluing his body parts together. And how about those lesbian cheerleaders who hogged the women’s room last week?!
Compared to all that, T.O.’s story is a bit of modern U.S. labor law.
But if he were an Asian American, you wouldn’t hear about it.
We may have our Tao. We don’t have a good sense of T.O.
We do have our stellar qualities in various fields. But we are unlikely to be boastful about our individual greatness to the point of alienation.
Kabuki drama? Yes. Locker room or playing field drama? Not our style.
To some, this tendency is one of our better qualities. It feeds into the “model minority” idea. We’re good, don’t-rock-the-boat Asian Americans. And we usually get ignored.
We need to be a little bit more like T.O.
Owens just doesn’t know when to quit. He goes one step beyond amok.
His antics spoil the facts of the case, which would make any prudent person muster far more sympathy for him than many think is humanly possible.
The T.O. story is just a contract dispute. Forget the histrionics that influence your distaste for him. He’s full of himself, but in the same way as Muhammad Ali. Yet, Ali is seen as a hero, Owens a flounting braggart.
Owens may be the playful and misunderstood egotist. But boy, can he take his game seriously. Who can forget how he miraculously played the last Super Bowl while injured, risking his health for the team?
Winners want him on their team. But not the Philadelphia Eagles, a team that’s cheap, greedy and burdened with a plantation mentality.
It brings about the obvious race angle in the story: T.O. is black man speaking out in the white NFL, where players are just property.
Essentially, they’re high-priced slaves. And it’s a hard road to free agency.
You might dismiss it as all voluntary, those poor mistreated millionaires. But if that’s so, how can players like T.O. get screwed by teams like the Eagles?
In a strictly meritorious system, T.O. should get paid what other NFL stars make. But his deal with the Eagles was just a two-year contract that enables the team to escape paying him the bulk of his money for this year as a roster bonus in March 2006.
John Czarnecki of FoxSports.com points out that another Eagle, Jevon Kearse, a defensive end, got a $16 million bonus to sign –– $12 million as a signing bonus, and $4 million in roster bonus. (Bonuses are the sweeteners to the basic salary, which are already sweet enough for mere mortals.)
Including salary, Kearse’s total deal was $75 million for three years. Oh, did I mention, Kearse has been hurt and hasn’t played much this year? The checks keep coming.
Owens, on the other hand, got only $2.3 million to sign, and must wait for his $6.2 million roster bonus in March — if he’s still on the team. He won’t be.
The total deal for Owens, one of the top ten players in the NFL, was for just over $12.4 million for two years.
Even his detractors can see the unfairness here. But Owens rubs people the wrong way to the point where no one feels his pain.
The real shame is how the Eagles are using T.O.’s obnoxious style as an excuse to dump him. For the sake of the team? Nah, just to exploit his gifts for next to nothing.
The truth is, he could use some of what we have.
We could use some of what he’s got.
Still, in the end, when the corporate world can easily put you in your place, it really doesn’t matter what race you are.
Reach Emil at emil@amok.com.
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