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Terrell Owens' Trainer cites physical, emotional setbacks
Terrell Owens' longtime trainer, James "Buddy" Primm, with a client in 1997, says the Cowboys receiver is dealing with, among other things, the end of a three-year relationship with his fiancée.
Terrell Owens' longtime personal trainer said Wednesday that "a perfect storm" of physically and emotionally devastating events conspired to put the superstar receiver into a tailspin that resulted in a trip to the emergency room Tuesday.
Those events also generated what the trainer called "erroneous" reports of a suicide attempt.
"A lot of things were coming to a head anyway, and then this happened," said James "Buddy" Primm, 55, who until earlier this month, had been living with Owens in his loft on Commerce Street, in the shadow of Fair Park.
Primm said Owens underwent two traumatic events Monday involving his 7-year-old son and his fiancée, a woman he has dated for three years.
Owens' son, from a previous relationship, celebrated his birthday Monday, Primm said. Owens was distraught, he said, about not being able to be see the boy, who lives in California.
"He wanted to get together with the boy," Primm said. "But the boy could not come here, and Terrell could not go there."
Then hours later, a woman whom Primm described as Owens' fiancée broke off the relationship. Primm declined to give the woman's last name but said she and Owens had been dating for three years. She also lives in California.
"That's been coming on forever," Primm said of the breakup. "She's not a bad girl. She's cool, she's fine. He said, 'Can I take a break from the engagement?' And she said, 'No, let's just put a stop to it.' And that was a complete surprise to Terrell."
Primm, who lives in Duluth, Ga., near Owens' off-season residence in Atlanta, has known the Cowboys receiver for seven years. They met when Owens played for the San Francisco 49ers, "exactly 16 weeks before he stood on the star" during a game at Texas Stadium.
That happened during the 2000 season, and Primm says that since then the two have forged a father-son-like bond that Owens seems to need. Growing up in abject poverty in rural Alabama, Owens was raised by his mother and grandmother and, according to Primm, has long been in need of a dominant male figure in his life.
"He's getting to be like my son," said Primm, who returned to his home in Georgia last week. He plans to return to Dallas in the next few days to be with Owens.
Owens "doesn't have many friends," said the trainer, who contends that the public and news media have long misperceived a man he considers "a gentle soul" and a "caring, highly sensitive" individual with a fragile psyche.
"He's a good person," Primm said. "A very good person."
Primm said he had been in touch with Owens and members of the player's inner circle on Wednesday. He said that after hearing the chronology of Tuesday's events, he understood why and how the incident took place and that suicide wasn't an issue.
"He probably took the pain medication and fell off to sleep," Primm said. "Then when he gets up, of course he's going to be weird."
Before arriving at the Cowboys' practice facility at Valley Ranch on Tuesday, Owens spent the morning addressing students at a local high school about the perils of domestic abuse and how it's not their fault should their parents choose to fight.
"It's an issue he cares about," Primm said.
Owens reported to the Cowboys' practice facility at 11:30 a.m. and worked out "hard," Primm said, catching "bullets" from quarterbacks Drew Bledsoe and Tony Romo for the first time since last week's surgery on his broken right hand.
And for the first time since the surgery, Owens felt serious pain, the trainer said, noting that until Tuesday night, Owens had not been on a regular routine of taking pain medication "because he hadn't needed to."
The receiver left Valley Ranch around 4 p.m. Tuesday and drove home in rush-hour traffic, arriving at his Exposition Park loft around 5:30 p.m.
That's when the physical trauma began.
At Primm's direction, Owens had been taking about 30 supplements a day, up from his normal six, "to accelerate the healing process," the trainer said. The supplements included "all different types of calcium, all different types of magnesium ... a few different types of glandulars," Primm said. "Things for the immune system, to get blood to that area."
He said he had also been using a $40,000 laser device on Owens' injury.
"Five minutes on the bottom of the hand, five minutes on the top" first thing in the morning, Primm said. That had accelerated the healing process, he said, in addition to another device about the size of a breadbox, into which Owens inserted a gloved hand wrapped in a towel to help "dissolve scar tissue."
Primm said that under normal circumstances, the machine designed to remove scar tissue "just knocks you out. It makes you sleepy."
He said the machine has the dual effect of "getting rid of scar tissue and of cells the body isn't using." Such therapy is vital, he said, in allowing bones to heal as rapidly as possible.
It was Primm who introduced Owens to such devices and to the hyperbaric chamber, which he said enabled the athlete to play in Super Bowl XXXIX in February 2005 for the Philadelphia Eagles, despite suffering a broken leg only weeks before.
But the combination of this week's events was apparently too much, the trainer said.
As for what comes next, Primm predicts that Owens will play Sunday against the Tennessee Titans. And how will he fare for the rest of the season?
"Great," the trainer said.
Source: Dallas Morning News