In this episode, current Congressman and former professional football player Burgess Owens joins Doc and the Block to discuss success, failure and never giving up.
Owens grew up in the South during the Jim Crow era, which was a time when states enacted laws that mandated racial segregation. He graduated from Rickards High School in Tallahassee, Florida, where he played football and was one of four black players who were integrated onto a football team at a historically white high school. Owens ended up playing football for the University of Miami, where he was the third black American to earn a scholarship.
After graduating with a Bachelor of Science in Biology and Chemistry, Owens played for the New York Jets in the NFL and later the Oakland Raiders, where he was part of the Raiders’ 1980 Super Bowl championship team.
After retiring from the NFL, Owens attempted to open up his own business which ended up failing and, as he said in the podcast, he “lost everything.” Owens had to work as a chimney sweep and a security guard so he could support his family. A few months later, he was able to get a sales job which began his 25-year career in corporate sales.
Owens founded Second Chance 4 Youth in 2019, which is a nonprofit dedicated to helping troubled and incarcerated youth, and in 2020 he was elected to Congress as a Utah Republican.
During the podcast, Owens explains how his perseverance and ability to overcome obstacles was instilled in him by his parents and his community where “winning was expected of us.”
“The history of our country is that anyone that comes here applies themselves to the American culture will succeed, period. Doesn’t matter the background, how much money they have, what their language might be. If you learn, and I’ll say that culture is phrasing four words, is faith, family, the free market, and education,” he says in the podcast.
