In additional to providing the stage for the biggest sporting event in the world, the Super Bowl provides an opportunity to visit with the great players of the past who have become great men, citizens, husband and fathers. ProPlayerInsiders.com was able to visit with one such person during the frenzy of the Super Bowl – Brig Owens.
Owns was born in 1943 in Linden, Texas, a small town near the Louisiana border and was one of thirteen children. To support the large family, Owens’ dad took a job at the shipyards in Southern California when Brig was born and was able to save enough money to bring the whole family there around the time Brig was three years old. During his childhood, Brig recalls his mother had the reputation of being the neighborhood mom. “The neighborhood kids knew that they could get a good meal at our place. If anyone in the family was late for a meal, they may have found a neighborhood kid sitting in their place.”
After playing quarterback for the University of Cincinnati, the Dallas Cowboys drafted Owens in 1965 in the seventh round. Although anxious to join the Tom Laundry-led Cowboys as a quarterback, Brig joined a team with the likes of Don Meredith, Craig Morton and Jerry Rhome already on the squad. Laundry converted him to a defensive back, although Brig recalls never having tackled a soul prior to that day.
Brig’s time in Dallas lasted only one season. In 1966, he was traded to the Washington Redskins were he spent the next eleven years, the entirety of his career. And a stellar career it was. Brig holds the record for most interception return yards in Redskin history at 686 and is second all-time in total interceptions at 36, three of those being for touchdowns. He is also credited with recovering ten fumbles returning then for 143 yards and two touchdowns. Not bad for an era when defenses rarely accounted for points.
But it was not only on the field that Owens was a star. After the NFL, Brigs earned a law degree at Antioch Law School. His law degree eventually led him join the NFLPA as assistant executive director and associate staff counsel. During his five year tenure he was integral to creating the association’s degree completion program, the financial planning program. He also had a large imprint on the League’s current grievance and collective bargaining process. Even today, Brig continues to serve as president of the NFLPA’s Retired Players Steering Committee.
After his stint with the NFLPA, he opened and continues to operate a real estate and sports management firm that he began with a friend, Richard Bennett who has since passed away. Together with Bennett’s wife LuAnn, their Commercial Real Estate company, the Bennett Group ,offers a full range of “green” construction and development services. They are also co founders of Bennett and Owens Sports Management and served as an agent for professional athlete, including Art Monk, Gary Clark, Joe Jacoby, Wilber Marshall, and Bruce Smith.
Perhaps what he is most proud of, however, is his work as chairman of Super Leaders, a youth leadership program that he created twenty-five years ago. “It is a drug prevention and anti-violence program,” he explained. “Seven hundred kids go through the program each year and almost all graduate high school,” said Owens. The program also encourages and helps kids get into college and has job placement and internship programs. The participants in Super Leaders have a high school graduation rate of 98% and 75% go on to college,trade school, the military, law enforcement,emergency support, and the real world workforce. The program has an amazing retreat planned for students on April 1 of this year. For more information on this philanthropy that is developing the positive power of youth visit www.super-leaders.com
Interview contributed by ProPlayerInsiders, Theresa Villano from 21st Annual Taste of NFL: Party with a Purpose at Gleaners Food Bank during Super Bowl festivities in Indianapolis, IN.
