It was midwinter in early 1992, and then-University of Tennessee at Chattanooga football coach Buddy Nix and assistant Bobby Johns were returning from a recruiting trip to watch a skinny kid named Terrell Owens play basketball for Benjamin Russell High School.
The Mocs had already received a commitment from Derek Hall, Owens' football teammate and fellow wide receiver at the Alexander City, Ala., program. But Owens, despite playing less than Hall, intrigued the UTC coaches because of his remarkable athleticism.
As they drove through the night, Nix turned to Johns and said, "Hall should help us as a freshman. The other kid, we might wind up watching him play on Sunday."
Terrell Eldorado Owens indeed wound up playing on Sundays for 16 seasons. He was a six-time Pro Bowler, five times a first-team All-Pro, three times the NFL's receiving touchdowns leader and the owner of 156 career touchdowns, 15,934 receiving yards and a career average of 14.8 yards per catch.
And on Sunday afternoon, less than 24 hours after "T.O." was voted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame, Nix said, "When you look at all his numbers, if anybody deserves to be there, he does. Probably deserved to be in it before now."
It would be hard to argue that, but as PED-tainted baseball legends Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens can tell you, Hall of Fame invitations are subjective decisions often made by biased humans. And too much of T.O.'s professional career was pockmarked by questionable celebrations (remember him standing on the Cowboys' star at midfield of Texas Stadium after a Sept. 24, 2000 touchdown while with the San Francisco 49ers?) and ugly comments concerning teammates.
So thanks, at least in part, to those mistakes in judgment, Owens was denied induction to the Hall of Fame the first two years he was eligible. As if to keep those feuds alive, he even called it the "hall of shame" during an interview with a USA Today reporter this past week. He also left Minneapolis - the site of Sunday night's Super Bowl LII between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles - on Saturday before he could be informed he was in, presumably because he was too nervous he'd again be rejected.
But he got in this time, and former UTC basketball coach Mack McCarthy - Owens played for him a couple of seasons, too - was among those who texted Owens on Saturday evening to offer congratulations.
"Terrell texted me back immediately," McCarthy said. "And he's always done that. If I text him about anything, he'll text me right back."
McCarthy often saw a side of Owens many football folks never did, perhaps because Owens wasn't the star on the basketball court, much as Deion Sanders was, in general, a far less flamboyant performer on the baseball diamond than the football field.
"His work ethic was exceptional," said the winningest basketball coach in UTC history. "And his athleticism made us a better team. He would embarrass you in the weight room if you weren't doing your best. And no one wanted to win more than Terrell. He was a really good teammate. When we lost in the SoCon tournament in 1996 after we'd been to the NCAA tournament three straight years, no one took it harder than him."
McCarthy's favorite story concerning Owens off the court was the first time he wished to play college basketball, after the 1993 football season. Asking the UTC coach if he could start practice on the Monday before Thanksgiving, just two days after football season ended, McCarthy told him to go home and enjoy the holiday and start the following week.
"Terrell didn't like that answer," McCarthy recalled. "He wanted to stay that entire Thanksgiving week. It turned out he'd discovered that if he stayed, he could get meal money since the cafeteria was closed. From then on, his nickname on the team was 'Meal Money.'"
McCarthy also fondly recalled how in the years after Owens left and became an NFL star, he was only too happy to help anytime his former basketball coach asked for a favor.
"I remember there was a sick kid one time who really liked T.O.," McCarthy recalled. "Terrell didn't even know him, but he sent him the biggest box of stuff you've ever seen. And he did that kind of thing anytime we asked."
That was not always the image everyone had of him, though. While Nix is quick to point out that he and T.O. "never had any big-time problems," he also said Owens "dropped as many passes as he caught for us. What made him special was his athletic ability. He was always a world-class athlete."
Nix also believes a world-class wide receiver - Hall of Famer Jerry Rice, whom Owens admired so much he wore Rice's No. 80 at UTC - is the man most responsible for Owens becoming a Hall of Famer, because San Francisco drafted Owens while Rice was still playing for the Niners.
"Rice taught him how to work, how to practice," Nix said. "And T.O. was smart enough to listen."
It would be nice to think Owens is headed to the Hall of Fame because a lot of people listened to all of those blue T-shirts with gold and white lettering that were handed out at last Monday's UTC men's basketball game against UNC-Greensboro - the ones touting T.O. for the Hall of Fame.
And perhaps that helped. It was certainly a cool gesture by the school.
But what helped most was Owens' production on the field over 16 NFL seasons, how he morphed from that scrawny 6-foot, 175-pound high schooler into a 6-3, 224-pound dynamo who made some of the most amazing catches pro football has ever seen, and how he caught nine passes for 122 yards for the Philadelphia Eagles in Super Bowl XXXIX.
Or as Nix noted, "If you're basing it on football and stats, T.O. deserves to be in the Hall of Fame as much as anyone who's ever played."
Contact Mark Wiedmer@timesfreepress.com.