From Super Bowl Champion to Conservative Thinker: An Interview with Burgess Owens

“These players are heroes to many young black boys. Sadly, now they see their heroes disrespecting the flag and our country. It’s a terrible message to send.”

Mr. Burgess Owens joined Merion West‘s Henri Mattila on February 22nd to discuss the evolution of his personal politics, current issues affecting the National Football League, and the future of professional football. Mr. Owens was a first round draft pick of the New York Jets in 1970, where he played until 1979. In 1980, Mr. Owens was a member of the Oakland Raiders team that won Super Bowl XV.

Mr. Owens is the author of the book It’s All About Team: Exposing the Black Talented Tenth, and Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps.

Thank you for joining me today, Mr. Owens. Could you start by telling me a little bit more about your background and what brought you to conservatism?

I grew up in the sixties in Tallahassee, Florida during the days of segregation, so the community where I grew up was totally black. My mentors were black, my examples were black — it was a very successful community we had, with great teachers and coaches. The message that came out of that era was one was very simple: this is the greatest place in the history of mankind to live in: this is a place that we can compete in if we work hard enough, and we can overcome even the worst of people out there. I wanted to go out there to simply make my family proud, my community proud, and so on. My dad had fought in World War II, so of course he was very patriotic, and we were taught to be patriotic too.