Pro Football Hall of Famer Rod Woodson says the real reason that Hall of Famers give speeches when they’re inducted is to thank the people who helped them reach that point — something Terrell Owens doesn’t seem to grasp.
Woodson said on NFL Network that the most important part of his own Hall of Fame speech was acknowledging the people who had supported him along the way. Woodson thinks Owens owes it to those people — family members, teachers, high school coaches — to show up in Canton. Instead, Owens will skip the Hall of Fame enshrinement ceremony.
“I really don’t care if he comes or not,” Woodson said. “But what bothers me more than anything is that in T.O.’s life, he’s had different things that happened to him in his life, but there’s people who helped him come along through his childhood, high school, college, to get to the point where he’s at to be one of the better players to ever play in the National Football League . . . you can be there to acknowledge them. And they lose out, because he’s thinking, It’s all about T.O. For all those people who helped him, for him not to acknowledge them to the public, it’s a shame.”
Owens is the first Hall of Famer ever to decline to attend the enshrinement ceremony.
