Don’t hate me for being me.
When it comes to being qualified to being a “Star Of The Day” no one has more credentials than one Terrell El Dorado Owens. Born, December 7th, 1978, Owens is a Sagittarius Horse, fired by four planets in Sag and decidedly dramatic Jupiter in Leo (retrograde) Owens was destined to be a Dallas Cowboy, with a star emblazoned on his helmet. But his glittery road to Irving, Texas, was not without some serious bumps and hard turns along the way.
Owens’ career started out innocently enough as a quiet, yet talented understudy to then megastar and Hall of Famer, Jerry Rice. Rice was maniacal about his off season conditioning program and if there was anything that Owens took from his time with Rice and The Niners, it was adopting Jerry’s dedication to not only staying in shape, but pushing the limits of his body to entirely new levels. To this day, Owens’ physique is something he takes immense pride in.
His career has almost been mythopoetic, larger than life, driven by both his huge talent and equally huge ego.
During one of the greatest playoff games in NFL history, The Niners were in a heated battle with arch rivals, The Green Bay Packers. Ex-Niner asst. Mike Holmgren and his star QB, Brett Favre had The Niners number, beating them time and again in the mid/late nineties. Fritz Schumer’s defensive schemes often befuddled and frustrated, Young and Rice’s Niners. But durimg the closing moments of The NFC wild card gamer against The Packers, Steve Young threaded the needle between two defenders and connected with Owens on a laser shot into the end zone. Owens had dropped numerous passes that day, but ultimately found the right one to hold onto as he was viciously broadsided by two Packer defenders. The violence of their collision sent Owens into freakish paroxysms of ecstatic display. Owens was in tears of pain, joy, relief and ultimately deliverance. It was his savage baptism into the elite realm of NFL receivers. Here is a link to a video of Owens’ coming of age moment in the NFL.
His next, archetypal star turn took place on the day he killed the king, the king being Jerry Rice. It came when it was Rice’s anointed day, his last home game as a Niner, his moment of honor and recognition. What did Owens do? He simply set the all time record for receptions in one game with 20, eclipsing Tom Fears record, which had stood for fifty years. In Owens’ inimitable fashion, he served notice that he was now the man. Rice would never be accused of carrying a diminutive ego and Owens’ audacious display of talent was not how Jerry wanted to go out as a Niner.
In an ironic twist of fate that would cause Cowboy fans to have swallow the pride and a bitter distaste for TO, On September 24th, 2000, Owens socred two TD’s against The Cowboys in Dallas and proceeded to celebrate, mid-field on the famed Cowboy star. Here’s a hilarious sequence of Owens and Emmitt Smith going mano y manoon the star and the second time he did, safety, George Teague took umbrage and tackled TO while he basked in a moment that only Owens would have the audacity to act out. With his other ostentatious touchdown celebrations like the famed Sharpie in the end zone signing, TO was rapidly morphing into a WWF caricature, hated by opposing fans and teams across the league. Only The Niner Faithful could fully support Owens in his epic antics. But that would soon change.
As The Niners began to implode on the heels of their franchise wrecking loss to The Bucs in the 2000 NFC championship game, Owens pouted the following season, turning on QB Jeff Garcia (Pisces) publicly questioning Garcia’s heterosexuality and eventually leading to a trade to The Eagles where he would have yet another controversial relationship with QB Donovan McNabb.
What can we determine from Owens’ chart that can explain the eccentric, erratic and often bizarre behavior of this immensely gifted athlete?
Pluto was in Sagittarrius aspecting Owens’ Sun, Mercury, Mars and Neptune in Sag from the late nineties up, through 2006. As Pluto lit up each one of Owens’ planets in Sag, he transformed it seemed on a weekly basis. In addition to a lively fire/water chart, Pluto played an enormous role in his metamorphasis from a shy young man from Alabama, to a brash. self-created, media-sports icon
In his birth chart, Owens’ Moon is in Pisces and I feel as though this is a key planet for him. With Moon in Pisces, Owens, despite his bravado is almost painfully sensitive when it comes to his environment and if there was ever a case study of Moon in Pisces being emblematic of some sort of deception (Pisces/Neptune) with the mother (Moon) it has to do with the fact that Owens grew up thinking that the guy that lived across the street from him was his uncle, when in fact, it was actually his father. Now why she would do this is beyond me, but it no doubt had an impact on Owens somewhere along the way. At the very least, it would engender a significant lack of trust in the world. But Moon in Pisces is also very creative and in many ways, Owens is an artist trying to find himself in the macho world of pro football. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that TO overcompensates ever so slightly for his pronounced sensitivity. Adding to his artistic temperament is his Jupiter in Leo, retrograde at 8 degrees. This aspect speaks to his overreaching when it comes to expressing himself. The lion loves to be on center stage and when it’s aligned with Jupiter, it is often a larger than life exercise in ego gratification. Throw down the retrograde component and Owens’ antics often backfire on him, gaining him notoriety, but occasionally for all the wrong reasons. Owens’ Neptune in Sag is conjunct his Sun, also adding yet another layer of artistry, sensitivity and even spirituality.
I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Owens has a sever lack of Earth in his chart, with only Saturn in Virgo holding down much of a connection to this plain. But it is strong enough in his chart as it trines his Uranus in Scorpio, giving him strong recuperative powers and an almost compulsive obsession with his health. It’s obvious that for Owens, his relationship to the physical realm exists solely in the perfection and maintenance of his physique. This is clearly illustrated when he severely sprained his ankle in 2004 while playing with The Eagles during their Super Bowl season. Doctors told Owens that he would likely miss the remainder of the season and despite their claims, Owens worked intensely with his trainer, James “Buddy” Primm who got Owens to use Micro Current treatment along with a Hyperbarric Chamber and Owens contributed 9 catches for 122 yards. It was feat that bordered on the miraculous and a clear expression of Uranus (progressive thought, technology, science, radical breakthrough) in Scorpio (regeneratio and magnetism,) sextiling Saturn (bones) in Virgo (health and healing).
Owens’ honeymoon was Philly was short lived. He and McNabb feuded, Asst. Coach, Brad Childress and Head Coach, Andy Reid. Joe Banner, The Eagles team president, eventually suspended Owens, which would eventually clear the way for his departure and subsequent signing with of all teams, The Cowboys, where Owens once desecrated their holy star at the center of their football universe beneath the skies of Irving Texas, where football Jesus gazes down upon the gridiron glory. Along the way, Owens quietly feuded with control freak coach Bill Parcells, picked up controversial agent, Drew “The Shark” Rosenhaus, overdosed on pain pills, allowed his personal assistant to hold a bizarre press conference and now holds court in Wade Phillips’ locker room, seemingly having found some sort of balance in an often turgid life, with gyroscopic mood swings, and epic star turns from week-to-week.
Owens is an archetype unto himself, a diva-warrior, a new breed of hyper-tempermental athlete, part ballerina prima, part soldier of misfortune, but all pro and headed to the Hall of Fame. Todays star of the day, Terrell Owens.
Other stars born on this day include, Noam Chomsky, Tom Waits, Ellen Burstyn and Larry Bird.