Legendary receiver Jerry Rice had some advice for a young Terrell Owens when the two played for the San Francisco 49ers.

"T.O.," Rice told Owens, "at some point you're going to have to learn to be politically

correct. You know, give in, give 'em what they want."

Fourteen years into his NFL career, Owens remains reluctant to embrace Rice's words.

His outspoken style regarding his quarterbacks, his coaches and his desire to get the ball

— rightly or wrongly — keeps creating conflict, even though Owens has said he has

been more careful about his commentary over the years.

"In a sense I have, but where has it gotten me?" Owens said. "I've played the game a little

bit, and it still hasn't gotten me anywhere. I'm damned if I do, damned if I don't."

Owens has a clear grasp of his image as he begins a new chapter of his football career with

the Buffalo Bills.

Owens ranks No. 2 in NFL history in touchdown catches, behind only Rice. Owens is tied with

Andre Reed on the all-time catch list at No. 6. Yet Owens is known just as much for the

controversy that swirls around him.

It bothers him greatly.

"I know I've been a good teammate," he said. "I can't shake that stigma of being a bad

teammate, when I haven't been."

Therein lies the biggest conflict in Owens' public life: His bad-teammate stigma reputation

versus his contempt for any situation in which he is being bullied or believes he's facing

injustice.

No backing down

By now, many football fans are familiar with the outline of T.O.'s rise to fame. Grew up in a

small town in Alabama. Led a sheltered childhood. Raised by a loving, protective, strict

grandmother. Bullied and teased by classmates as a youngster. A late-bloomer as an athlete.

Recruited as an afterthought to small, Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he played both football

and basketball. Selected 89th in the 1996 NFL draft, behind 11 other receivers.

Owens did not have the pedigree or the polish of those receivers drafted ahead of him. It

turned out he had as much or more raw physical ability in his 6-foot-3, 220-pound body. He

wound up being the most physical receiver of a draft class that might be the best ever at its

position, including Marvin Harrison, Keyshawn Johnson and Eric Moulds.

It also turned out he had a drive to succeed that was as great as any in that draft class.

"I wasn't the best athlete when I was in high school," Owens said. "I wasn't the best

athlete when I was in college. I've done stuff nobody thought I could do. Walking onto the

Division I basketball team. I did that. There were tryouts. I had to work. I wasn't given that

spot. I've worked hard for everything I've gotten."

That drive was reinforced by his maternal grandmother, Alice Black, who assumed a big share

of Owens' parenting because his mother gave birth to him at age 17.

Both Black and Owens' mother, Marilyn, were shift workers for the largest employer in

Alexander City, Ala. — the Russell Corp. textile mill. It was demanding and

not-too-satisfying work, but the women fought through their circumstances to provide for the

family.

"She always had to work to put food on the table, make ends meet, [just like] with any

family," Owens said of his grandmother. "The household I grew up in she basically raised us

how she was raised. Strict. That was how she was raised."

Owens and his three siblings weren't allowed to go outside much, aside from school and

church. The blinds on the windows of their home routinely were kept closed. They weren't

allowed to watch cartoons on television. Owens recalls getting a bicycle for his birthday and

only being allowed to ride to the end of the driveway and back.

"She's meant so much to me," Owens said. "Wherever my grandmother went, I was her shadow.

She was a religious lady. But even that being said, she backslid a little bit. I was there

pretty much every step of the way. I rode go-karts through town with my grandmother. If she

went to a bootlegger's house, I was there. Everywhere she went, I was her shadow."

Black impressed upon her grandson the need to fight for what was rightfully his.

"I watched her come home angry over the way she had been treated at her job," Owens said in

his 2005 book, "T.O." "She told me never to let anyone walk all over me."

That philosophy has helped define Owens.

"I still won't let anyone bully me," Owens said. "It has been a driving force in my life."

"My greatest strength can sometimes be my greatest weakness," Owens wrote in "T.O." "I am a

fighter, I always have been and I always will be. I fight for what I think is right."

Following Rice

Read Owens' two books or have a conversation with him about his image, and you find he has

what seem like reasonable explanations for virtually all of the controversial moments in his

career.

His celebrity status started to get supersized when he began a string of high-profile

touchdown celebrations with the San Francisco 49ers. It began with his celebration on the star

in the middle of Texas Stadium in a 2000 game against Dallas. It grew bigger when he pulled

the Sharpie marker out of his sock and autographed the ball after a score on Monday Night

Football in 2002.

Those events helped transform Terrell into "T.O." — the headline-grabbing, multimedia

superstar.

Criticism of celebrations, Owens believes, represents media hypocrisy.

"They criticize players for being dull and lacking personality, but then as soon as you let

your personality come through, they smack you down for it," he wrote in "T.O."

As Owens developed into an All-Pro receiver for the 49ers, he also developed a reputation

for being outspoken.

Owens had the benefit of apprenticing under Rice for the first five years of his career.

Rice's legendary work ethic was right up Owens' alley; nobody outworked Rice on the 49ers.

Owens also got an up-close view of Rice's intensity. He witnessed numerous Rice temper

tantrums when the great receiver felt he was not being utilized properly. One of Rice's

biggest sideline flare-ups, in fact, came during the "dance-on-the-star game" in Dallas, only

it was overshadowed by Owens' celebrations. Rice, however, tended to keep his dissatisfactions

in-house.

"Some people call this instinct selfishness or not being a team player," Owens wrote in his

book, "Catch This." "I call it wanting to win, and I saw it burn inside Jerry Rice, and I felt

it burn inside myself."

Owens made headlines in 2001 by criticizing coach Steve Mariucci for going conservative

with a 28-9 lead in a game against a Dick Jauron-coached Chicago team. The Bears came back to

win on an interception return for a TD on a ball that bounced off Owens.

Owens' last season in San Francisco was a rocky one. The team slumped under new coach

Dennis Erickson. Owens clashed with offensive coordinator Greg Knapp, and his relationship

with quarterback Jeff Garcia, with whom he never had been close, deteriorated. Garcia referred

to Owens as a "sickness"; Owens suggested in a Playboy interview Garcia was gay. Owens

believed that Garcia was an undersized guy who was too quick to tuck the ball and run and was

inclined to go along with a conservative approach.

The late Bill Walsh, former Niners coach and president, reflected on Owens' tenure in 2006,

saying, "It will always be something else with him, some distraction, every day, every week.

It's just ongoing."

On the field, Garcia enjoyed the best success of his career with Owens, making three

straight Pro Bowls. In 67 regular-season games, Garcia and Owens combined for 50 touchdowns, a

ratio that was second only to Peyton Manning and Harrison over that span.

Philly fallout

Owens teamed with a more talented quarterback when he was traded to Philadelphia in 2004.

Donovan McNabb had led the Eagles to three straight NFC title games, but Owens' arrival put

Philadelphia over the top. Owens caught 14 TD passes that season as the Eagles reached the

Super Bowl. McNabb had by far the best season of his career, with 31 TD passes and just eight

interceptions. While the Eagles lost to New England in the championship, Owens earned wide

respect for returning from a broken leg — doctors called it a 10-week injury, but he

came back in just 6 1/2 — to catch nine passes for 122 yards.

Under the surface, however, there were problems. Owens believed that McNabb was growing

colder toward him because the quarterback perceived Owens as a threat to his stature as "The

Man" in Philly.

McNabb, in fact, seemed to acknowledge such tension in comments after Owens left the

Eagles.

"The whole power situation of being the face of the team, or the recognizable guy —

if that's what he was trying to outdo me or outdo the organization, whatever — that's

what I felt led to what's been going on," McNabb said.

Owens describes several examples in his book about McNabb being defensive and disrespectful

toward him. The slights compounded on both sides.

In April 2005, Owens gave an interview to ESPN in which he stated, "I wasn't the one who

got tired in the Super Bowl."

McNabb, in fact, was fatigued late in the game. Whether it was brutal honesty, political

incorrectness, spitefulness or a "slip of the tongue" (Owens' explanation), that comment

became a monster story in Philadelphia.

The 2005 season was a disaster for Owens. He held out of training camp in an unsuccessful

bid for a new contract. After scoring his 100th career touchdown, he called the Eagles a

"classless organization" because they refused to acknowledge the accomplishment during the

game. In an ESPN interview, he agreed with the assertion that the Eagles would be better off

with Brett Favre than McNabb at quarterback (causing another firestorm).

Owens got into a locker room scuffle with retired Eagle Hugh Douglas, who at the time was a

"team ambassador." After seven games, he was suspended for conduct detrimental to the team.

Even if things could have been patched up between Owens and McNabb, there was no resolution of

the contract impasse in sight. The Eagles released Owens after the season.

McNabb notwithstanding, Owens had plenty of friends on the Eagles. Bills receiver Justin

Jenkins joined the Eagles in 2004. He rejects the idea Owens had a negative impact on

teammates in the locker room.

"From my experience, it was nothing but good things in Philadelphia," Jenkins said. "If I

tell the regular average Joe that, they laugh. I was there the two years he was there. He's a

great teammate. He does a lot for the guys. We used to go over to his house every Monday

night. He'd have Monday Night Football at his house. He'd order food. He'd actually serve us.

"He was very willing to pull us aside and tell us what we should and should not do in this

league, not only on the field but off the field," Jenkins said. "He would always lead by

example on the practice field. That's a side of T.O. that most people don't see. It was just a

fun team atmosphere. That's the T.O. I know."

Done in Dallas

Many of Owens' Dallas teammates had similar comments in March when he was released after three

years with the Cowboys.

Said running back Marion Barber: "[Critics] are trying to make him into something he's not.

I felt the same way like everybody else, but then I met the man. Once you know who he is, he's

a great guy."

"He looked out for me on and off the field, taught me how to be a pro," said running back

Tashard Choice.

However, Owens' position with the Cowboys was not helped by his outspokenness in 2008, a

season in which Dallas slumped from 13-3 to 9-7.

After a loss to Philadelphia, Owens targeted offensive coordinator Jason Garrett, saying:

"I definitely know there needs to be some changes in regards of getting some guys involved and

just putting guys in position to win. And it all starts with the guy who is calling the

plays." (Quarterback Tony Romo also questioned the play-calling after that game.)

Owens also complained about the offense in an interview with Deion Sanders at midseason.

After a loss to Washington in which 18 passes were thrown his way, Owens said he wasn't

getting the ball in the first half. Then late in the season controversy erupted when it was

reported that Owens believed Romo looked to throw to tight end Jason Witten regardless of

whether Owens was open.

Owens vehemently denies that story.

"Just because [ESPN's] Ed Werder got an anonymous source that told him I said it, that

doesn't make it hard-core, etched-in-stone fact," Owens said. "How do I get a break? ... In

that locker room, I'm comfortable leaving the way I did, knowing that my teammates really

supported the things I had done there the last three years."

Ultimately, if Garrett and Romo wanted Owens back, it stands to reason he would have

returned. Dallas paid a big price to acquire receiver Roy Williams from Detroit last October.

Owens, it was decided, was expendable.

Owens acknowledged as much in a Twitter message to fans in which he said, "blame the OC and

Romo."

Fresh start

Owens begins work for his fourth team this week when the Bills open training camp. One could

argue it's a rehabilitation opportunity for both the player and the team.

Buffalo's offense clearly needs a spark. The Bills have ranked in the bottom eight in

passing six straight years. They haven't had a receiver catch 10 TD passes in seven years.

Owens caught 13 TDs in 2006, 15 in 2007 and 10 last season. That's 38 in three seasons. The

best three-year stretch by Dallas Hall-of-Famer Michael Irvin was 23. The best three-year

stretch by any Bills receiver was 27 TDs by Andre Reed.

From his perspective, Owens doesn't see it as a mission to redeem himself.

"I honestly feel good about myself in the way I conducted myself three years in Dallas," he

said.

Still, criticism stings.

"It upsets me to know that my mom gets upset," he said. "They hear all the negative

criticism of me. When people call in and say, "Jerk. Moron. And I'm not a good teammate.' That

correlates to me not being a good person in the audience's mind. That hurts my mom. I've

talked to my mom where she's been in tears just hearing radio broadcasts or people saying

negative things."

Hence, Owens is taking matters into his own hands with his VH1 reality show, which begins

this week.

"I guess it's a way to really try to get across to an audience or to my fans that may

dislike me," Owens said. "They have to carefully understand how the media works. I've done a

number of charitable things. I'm a hot item. ... So instead of the media talking about all of

the positive things I've done, they would rather talk about the negative, because negative

sells.

"I haven't been portrayed in the fairest of light. This is really going to show me. I have

control."

Will the Owens saga spin out of control with the Bills?

"There's no pressure on me at all," he said. "I know what I'm capable of, I'm very thankful

and gracious for the opportunity that the Bills have given me, and I'm going to embrace it. I

feel good. I can play this game. I know [offensive coordinator] Turk [Schonert] is going to

throw the ball down the field. I feel very confident in the guys that we have."

Let the record show Owens has started his Bills career on the politically correct foot.