Clarence Burgess Owens (born August 2, 1951) is a former American football safety who played ten seasons in the National Football League for the New York Jets and the Oakland Raiders. He graduated from Rickards High School in Tallahassee, Florida in 1969,[1] and then attended the University of Miami, where he was a 1st-Team All-American defensive back, Most Valuable Defensive Player of the North–South All Star Game, and MVP of the Coaches All-American Game. He was inducted into the University of Miami Sports Hall Of Fame in 1980, and its Orange Bowl "Ring of Honor" in 1999.
Owens was a first round draft pick of the Jets in 1973. During his rookie season, he returned a kickoff 82 yards for a touchdown against the Denver Broncos on October 28. This was the Jets' only TD scored on a kickoff return during the 1970s. He then became a continuous starting player for the Jets, and was a part of the Raiders' 1980 championship team.
Owens is married with six children and is a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.[1] He has publicly shared about his faith to large audiences.[2]
Owens is the author of an ebook published in August 2012 with the title, It's All About Team: Exposing the Black Talented Tenth. The book examines how the black community has fared since the start of the twentieth century, especially in following the thinking of W. E. B. Du Bois and progressive liberalism.[3] Owens is also the author of Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps (2016) which offers a history and analysis of the Black experience in the United States with suggestions for moving past conventional ideas of moving the Black community forward. In 2018, Owens released Why I Stand, which discusses socialism as the driving force behind modern American socio-political movements.[4]
On June 19, 2019, Burgess was one of many to speak to a House Judiciary subcommittee on the topic of reparations for slavery, which he spoke out against.[5]