Terrell Owens Highlights Treatment of Mentally Ill (9/29/06)
by Dean Hartwell
I feel bad for Terrell Owens. That's kind of hard to do, since he is an obnoxious, overpaid and overrated athlete. But his current troubles have me even more suspicious of his coach, Bill Parcells.
Just recently, the Dallas Cowboys wide receiver, also known as "T.O.," went to the hospital after an apparent overdose of medication. His public relations representative told the police that he had said he tried to commit suicide, which Owens later denied.
Whatever happened, the player the Cowboys signed to a $25 million contract a few months ago, was in the hospital. Did his head coach, Parcells, bother to go visit him or even call him on the phone? No. He told news reporters that they probably knew more than he did about Owens' situation.
T.O. is not new to controversy. He wore out his welcome at his former teams in San Francisco and Philadelphia with his arrogant manner and his taunting of his teammates. He got along poorly with the quarterbacks who threw him passes and almost got into a fight with one of them.
But the recent incident suggests there is an underlying reason for T.O.'s behavior. He probably has mental health issues that have gone undetected or unaddressed up until now. I am not qualified to offer a diagnosis, but I feel certain that his self-medication is a sure sign that the brain isn't functioning properly.
To a coach with a no-nonsense attitude, like Parcells, mentally ill football players don't belong on the team. Lots of coaches and other leaders around the nation share Parcells' "carry your own water" (i.e. if you have a problem, take care of it yourself) creed, but Parcells' prominence and success as a head football coach for over twenty years makes this matter all the worse.
Those who follow this controversy may side with Parcells and agree with him that people with mental problems are dead weight and should be discarded or ignored. I hope they reconsider this belief, which is based upon ignorance. Some of our greatest leaders, like Abraham Lincoln, suffered from mental issues.
If T.O. had been in a car accident, Parcells would have been to the hospital in a heartbeat. If T.O. had discovered he had cancer, Parcells would have expressed his sympathies. Likewise if something happened to one of T.O.'s relatives.
The problem with the Bill Parcellses of our society is that they distinguish mental illness from other types of problems. They see it as a weakness and they convince themselves that the mentally ill are faking it. Maybe they even see this illness as a joke.
A friend of mine used to say, "It's all fun and games until someone gets hurt." Well, someone got hurt here. And millions more hurt every day. Will we ask them how they are doing or will we pull a Parcells and read about it in the papers?