Agent Has Eye For The Stars

By THOMAS W. KRAUSE The Tampa Tribune

Published: Aug 8, 2007

TAMPA - In 1991, after four years of playing defensive back for Dartmouth College, John Owens Jr. was realistic about his athletic future.

"From the time I was little, I wanted to play either professional football or professional baseball," Owens, 38, said last week. "But at 5-foot-8, there are not too many opportunities in the NFL."

He switched to Plan B: law school.

Now, after 12 years as a civil trial lawyer, Owens is reliving some of his younger dreams.

In a shift from courtroom work to sports representation, he negotiated for six college football players in April's National Football League draft. Three signed as rookie free agents. One, a wide receiver out of Florida International University, was drafted by the Minnesota Vikings.

"It's a tough business," Owens said about becoming a sports agent. "But it's rewarding, too. When you represent a guy who, at the beginning of the draft season, wasn't supposed to get drafted but he does, that's rewarding."

Chandler Williams, now at the Vikings training camp in Minnesota, said he is working hard and hopes to impress the coaches.

Williams said Owens worked hard, too.

"I'm pretty sure he put in a lot of time on the phone," Williams said.

Owens was born in Prospect, N.Y., a town of about 350 people in the upper part of the state. His grandfather was a professional baseball coach. Although Owens also excelled in baseball, by the time he was in the third grade, he wanted to play Pop Warner football.

His mother and grandfather warned him against the much rougher sport, but that did little to discourage Owens.

"The more they didn't want me to play football, the more I wanted to," he said.

At Dartmouth, Owens said, he enjoyed his time in academics and athletics. Still, he remained realistic and knew professional sports was an unlikely career path.

"The first time I ever thought of being an agent was back at college when I met Howard Slusher's son," Owens said.

At the time, Slusher represented sports legends such as former Pittsburgh Steelers star receiver Lynn Swann and James "Catfish" Hunter, an outstanding pitcher for the Kansas City and Oakland Athletics and New York Yankees.

With Owens' love of sports and his interest in the law, sports representation seemed like a natural fit.

Before leaping into law school, Owens took a job clerking for a law firm to get his feet wet. As a law clerk in Buffalo, he spent hours upon hours combing through depositions and legal files. Then he was contacted by a coach for a football league in France who had seen him play at Dartmouth.

"I got a phone call in December in Buffalo asking if I wanted to go to Europe to play football," Owens said. "It took all of about one second to make that decision."

After playing for a year in France, Owens returned to the United States to attend law school at Tulane University.

"I could have gone back and played for Barcelona, and it was tempting, but I figured I needed to get along with my life," he said.

Courtroom To Ball Field

After law school, Owens moved to Clearwater, where he was hired by Fowler, White, Boggs and Banker, one of the largest law firms in Florida.

He worked in the firm's trial division, where he focused on civil rights law, construction law and general civil trial work. In 1996, he passed his certification test to become an NFL negotiator, but his trial workload made sports representation unrealistic.

Owens worked hard as a trial lawyer and became a partner with the firm about five years ago.

By then, Owens was married with children. In 2005, after a few years in the West Palm Beach office, he and his wife decided to come back to Tampa, where they are raising three boys: John III, 3 1/2 ; Owen, 2 1/2 ; and Stone, 8 months.

Back in Tampa, Owens said, he realized his caseload was not as heavy as it used to be.

A friend from high school, Joe Palumbo, had been doing sports representation in the Tampa Bay area for a few years. With the blessing of his partners, Owens and Palumbo began to recruit college players to help them sign with professional teams.

"The recruiting of potential clients is very time-consuming," Owens said. "The process after that is very time-consuming. You have to be committed to it to be good at it and successful at it."

A Challenging Job

All professional sports have hoards of established sports agents. When a young player with professional promise wants someone to help him negotiate a contract or secure a spot on a football team, he has myriad options.

Adding to the difficulty, the NFL Players Association has strict rules about approaching players who have agents.

That makes it difficult for newcomers to the world of sports representation.

Owens, therefore, is working with athletes who have not been seen by scouts and who are not considered to be front-runners for spots on professional teams.

"The athletes are who they are," Owens said. "They have to produce. But a number of athletes fall through the cracks. It's our job to make sure they don't fall through and people see their talent."

Owens stays busy on the telephone. He contacts NFL personnel officials and coaches. He talks about his players' past results, their sizes, their positions, their playing time and backgrounds. When asked, he sends game film.

Jon Holt, a Clearwater resident who played offensive tackle at North Carolina State, signed with Owens about a month ago. Holt said his previous agent didn't produce very well. He was passed over for the draft.

Since Owens has been representing Holt, he has tried out with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and is scheduled to try out for the Buffalo Bills.

"He's a hard worker," Holt said. "You can see the athletic side of him from college, and he still has that. He's a feisty guy."

Owens said all agents worry about retaining clients. Once players make the big time, there are great temptations to leave for a top-name agent. Holt, however, said he's going to stick with Owens.

"When someone works for you and you've got nothing, he'll work for you when you've got everything," Holt said.

Owens spends about 70 percent of his workweek in civil trial work and about 30 percent in sports representation. He hopes to reverse those numbers one day, although he said he never wants to give up trial work altogether.

"We want it to be a growth area for the firm," he said. "But you have to grow it over time. You have to build your reputation."

Reporter Thomas W. Krause can be reached at (813) 259-7698 or tkrause@tampatrib.com.