When Yahoo Sports Senior NFL Reporter Terez Paylor passed away at the age of 37 last week, the kind thoughts and tributes from his fellow writers came thick and fast, and that should come as no surprise. I didn’t know Paylor well, but we’d talked a few times, and I always had a great deal of respect for his professional acumen, his ability to break a story, and how he was able to frame his stories with intelligent and personal narratives.
It’s not an exaggeration to say that we lost a giant in the industry.
Terez broke news, devoured film, brought the game to fans with a unique voice, and helped fellow writers along the way.
Remembering Terez Paylor.
— Yahoo Sports (@YahooSports) February 10, 2021
Paylor, a Black man who understood and embodied his responsibilities in that regard, was also a member of the Hall of Fame selection committee, and as Newsday’s Bob Glauber recently wrote, Paylor really went to bat for the candidacy of Terrell Owens, the ridiculously talented and highly mercurial receiver whose induction was delayed in the first two years of his eligibility. Owens finished his career with 1,078 receptions (eighth all-time), 15,934 yards (third all-time), 153 touchdowns (third all-time), and 14.5 yards per touch (12th all-time). Numbers that should have made Owens a first-ballot Hall of Famer, but it’s not hard to imagine the number of reporters Owens irritated along the way. It’s not a fair part of the process, but these things happen.
Paylor wasn’t having it. At the Selection Committee meeting the night before Super Bowl LII on February 3, 2018, Paylor made an impassioned speech to the other members about what Owens meant to him, and how Owens was seen by a younger generation of football fans who didn’t expect or demand that their heroes be entirely uncomplicated, or lily-white in their behaviors.
Matt Maiocco of NBC Sports Bay Area, who had presented Owens’ case for induction the two previous years, put it this way to Glauber: “To hear a young Black man talk about what drew him to the sport that he loved and what made an impression on him as a young man growing up was a perspective that I had personally never considered when it comes to that [Hall of Fame meeting] room.
“There’s the old saying that you know what a Hall of Famer is when you see him. Terez basically said that, growing up, that’s what a Hall of Famer in his community, among his friends and the people who shared the same experiences, looked like. Boom, that right there, that’s a Hall of Famer. I think that opened people’s eyes to a new perspective and a way of defining what a Hall of Famer is.”
Paylor tilted the room, and made the difference. Owens never knew how it happened in the room until Glauber reached out to him to tell him the story.
“I get glassy-eyed just thinking about it,” Owens said. “My condolences to his family. It’s so sad. I didn’t hear anything about Terez and his perspective and how they were deliberating on me. It’s so unfortunate that I’m learning of this after this man’s passing. Honestly, I wish I could have spoken to him to say thank you for what he did.
“What he did is what I did. You’re being courageous. You’re standing up, sometimes against giants. For him to be that young in a room of elders and people that have been on that committee for some time, that speaks volumes.
“For [Paylor] to have the courage to stand on the table . . . he didn’t know me personally, but I think him being a Black man and being a young guy and understanding where this generation is now, using our voice, is meaningful. I just wish I could have thanked him.”
It takes a lot to stand up for yourself and your own perspectives and experiences in a room filled with the true giants of football journalism, and bring your voice to the room that fearlessly. But that’s who Terez Paylor was, that’s what made him great, and that’s why he’ll always be remembered so very fondly.