IRVING – Terrell Owens smiles, declares he's not depressed and adamantly denies he tried to take his own life.
About the same time Wednesday, Denver Broncos safety Sam Brandon turns himself in after he violates a restraining order, and a warrant is issued for his arrest. A few hours earlier, Cincinnati Bengals linebacker Odell Thurman discovers he is suspended for the remainder of the season for a DUI arrest.
All this comes less than 24 hours after agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency appear at the San Diego Chargers complex and arrest starting safety Terrence Kiel for shipping codeine-based cough syrup across state lines.
Other than sharing a finite time frame, these events appear unrelated. But John Lucas, a former NBA head coach and No. 1 draft pick, finds a common denominator.
Lucas, a recovering addict, talks about a system that trains athletes to compete on the field yet leaves them ill-equipped to cope off it. Lucas describes an environment that spits outs athletes at the expense of adults.
"You grow up as an adult athlete, but you don't grow up as an adult," Lucas said. "Those are two very different things. A great athlete doesn't translate into being a great adult.
"Situations that baffle us, other people can handle and deal with."
Lucas is devoted to a holistic approach that addresses these life skills at his player development and continuing care facility in Houston. He has a relationship with Cowboys coach Bill Parcells and will periodically pop up on the team's sideline during games.
Athletes often have an armada at their disposal. Some have personal trainers in addition to the team's trainer to take care of their physical needs. Some, like Owens, have a personal publicist on top of the team's public relations staff.
An athlete has an agent to handle his money. He may have marketing people. He may have a personal assistant to run errands and take care of daily nuisances.
"There is always someone to handle those issues," Lucas said. "Because we have so many people to take care of our needs, we sometimes don't have the emotional mechanism to handle needs in our personal life."
Humans are self-absorbed by nature. Lucas believes the support system around athletes takes that to an extreme. He talks about the isms in an athlete's life:
Perfectionism refers to how athletes are taught to be the best no matter what the endeavor.
Socialism applies to those day-to-day skills athletes too often lack.
And then there's the first letter of isms.
"It's always I, myself and me," Lucas said. "All we do is focus on me."
Balance is difficult to achieve in the athletic world. Competition isn't about balance. It's about winning and losing.
It's about instant gratification. You succeed or fail, then move on.
A sound credo for sports, but it's a horrible approach for life. Personal loss and struggles become issues athletes distance themselves from rather than resolve.
And remember Lucas' assertion that athletes are more egocentric than most. When the universe revolves around you, when no one else is in it, the sting of failure is compounded.
"Real issues become so much more than win or lose that we can't get through them," said Lucas, who marked 20 years of sobriety in March. "Players get traded if a situation doesn't work. Coaches get fired.
"People talk about the need to be in the middle. There ain't no middle in our lives. When was the last time you heard a team talk about how they wanted to finish in the middle?
"Life issues don't work like that. They can't be resolved right away. We want them to go away or be fixed. But you have to work on a relationship with your wife or fiancée. You have to work on a relationship with your kids."
There's also the issue of an athlete's identity.
Lucas bumped into a friend of his Wednesday morning in Houston. The man hasn't played football in 20 years, yet people call him by his jersey number. He refers to himself by his jersey number. When Lucas asked why, the athlete replied, "that's who I am."
Later that day, when discussing Owens, Cowboys linebacker Bradie James said, "No. 81 loves himself too much to even think about something [suicide] like that." Publicist Kim Etheredge said her client had, "25 million reasons why he should be alive."
Again, the athlete is reduced to his number or how much he makes, not who he is.
The Cowboys played hot potato with Owens' mental health Thursday. Parcells said he is charged with the receiver's physical well-being and preparation and nothing else.
"I don't have a little office with a couch where I call them in one at a time," Parcells said.
Owner Jerry Jones declined interview requests. Calvin Hill, the player-development consultant who oversees behavioral issues, was at Valley Ranch on Thursday but issued a polite no comment when approached by reporters.
Lucas will tell you it's not the club's obligation to help a player cope with his personal life. It's not the coach's responsibility.
It's the athlete's.
"The high school programs inherit these problems, then the colleges and then the pros," Lucas said. "We don't know how to change ourselves.
"We've got to learn. We've got to do a better job of finding mechanisms to cope."
E-mail dmoore@dallasnews.com
