T.O. with a conscience

0 Comments | Oakland Tribune, Sep 24, 2006 | by Jerry McDonald, STAFF WRITER

"I wish I could take you all back to 1963. I had one of the greatest players who has ever played this game and he was tough to handle. He was the T.O. of his time. And he was great. His first year for me he carried us. He caught 16 touchdowns. His name was Art Powell." -- Raiders owner Al Davis on Aug. 1, 2006

The man Al Davis called "The T.O. of his time" got dumped by the Philadelphia Eagles.

Art Powell, like Terrell Owens, was a headstrong, independent free-thinker who discarded conventional wisdom as easily as he scored breathtaking touchdowns.

Pro football management, with one exception, wanted no part of him. Opponents and even some teammates felt the same way.

Powell would not conform to societal norms, challenging the last vestiges of the Jim Crow South when many other African-American athletes were keeping quiet.

The comparison to "T.O." by his former boss at a press conference elicits a chuckle from Powell. He is 69 years old and living in Aliso Viejo, not far from where he grew up in San Diego.

Powell can see the similarities between him and Owens. They were both basketball players who became extraordinarily gifted receivers. They were controversial, although as Powell points out, in very different ways.

Owens is a multi-million dollar talent in a billion-dollar industry. Powell played when racial quotas were commonplace and black players in Southern locales were housed separately from their white teammates.

"The challenges that were before me were social challenges," Powell said. "I chose to challenge'em while others chose not to challenge 'em. ... I made a lot of people angry."

Powell, having already posted big numbers with the New York Titans from 1960 through 1962, was brought by Davis to Oakland in 1963. In four seasons, he caught 254 passes for 4,491 yards and scored 50 touchdowns in 56 games.

At 6-foot-3, 211 pounds, Powell had great hands, the graceful stride of a sprinter and the size and strength to dominate defensive backs unencumbered by the limited-contact rules that currently exist in the NFL.

He played just one season at San JoseState in 1956 before leaving to play in Canada -- leading the nation in receiving -- and is regarded by some to be the best all-around athlete to attend the school.

Yet Powell's name draws blank stares not only from the most die- hard football fans, but also from current NFL players who don't know of the sacrifices he and others of his era made.

"I've heard about African-American kids playing baseball who don't know who Jackie Robinson is," Powell said. "If that's the case, no one is going to know who Art Powell is."

Powell grew up in San Diego and said he visited the library often as a youth, reading with particular interest about Robinson and Paul Robeson, an actor, athlete and singer who was in the forefront of the civil rights movement from the 1920s to the 1960s.

Still, Powell said it was never his intention to challenge the system.

"All I wanted to do was be a football player. Period," Powell said. "All this other stuff was dumped in my lap."

Those who know and played with Powell relate to the physical comparison with Owens, but reject the notion of the two being anything alike other than as receivers.

When Powell scored touchdowns, there was no dancing, no Sharpies, no raising his hands to the heavens on the Dallas star.

"The things Owens does are all self-serving, in my opinion, and I don't even know the guy," said Tom Flores, who played with Powell in both Oakland and Buffalo. "The things that Art did were because of beliefs that he had."

Howie Williams, a Raiders cornerback from 1964-69, believes Powell's experience living in Canada while playing in the Canadian Football League in 1958-59 helped shape his perspective.

"You're supposed to be free -- he wanted to be free," Williams said. "He lived in Canada, so he'd been exposed to a different society. He didn't expect everyone to like him, but he was going to force Americans to be Americans."

Bill Walsh, the Raiders receivers coach in 1966, has known Powell since his days at San Jose State and has long admired his willingness to act on principle.

"Art was his own man and fiercely independent," Walsh said. "He was not afraid to voice his opinions and to take a stand."

Taking a stand

Owens' relationship with the Eagles was fractured over money. Powell was let go following his rookie season because he was the only one of a dozen African-American players who refused to play in a preseason game in Norfolk, Va.

"We were told colored ballplayers -- that was the language in those days -- would not be allowed to stay with the rest of the team in the hotel," Powell said. "I chose not to play. The other African- American ballplayers said they weren't going to play either. But they did play. ... It cost me my job."

The Eagles, Powell said, told him to go home and think about it. Meanwhile, the American Football League was formed, and Powell signed with the New York Titans.

In his first season, Powell caught 67 passes for 1,167 yards and 14 touchdowns, but wasn't prepared for what was to come the following season while on a trip to Greenville, S.C., for a preseason game.