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The answer didn't take Jerry Owens long to formulate.
The Master's baseball alum, who went on to play in the big leagues with the Chicago White Sox, appeared Monday on TMU's podcast, the Mustang Sports Feed. And with the start of his third season as a rookie ball manager in the Cleveland Indians organization in limbo because of the coronavirus, Owens, 39, was asked about long-term career goals.
"I'll be honest, my goal and dream is to be smack-dab in the middle of God's will," Owens said, "and if that means managing in the Major Leagues, if that is where He wants me, then that would be awesome. If He wants me to stay at rookie ball for 20 years, I just want to glorify Him, man, and when I think about that question, when I think about where I want to be, obviously there are financial perks to the major leagues and different things like that, but I know, and the Lord has shown me time and time again, that He is going to provide.
"Whether that is at the Major League level or the rookie ball level, I just want to be where He wants me to be, and I want to be in a place where I can impact young men in a way that honors Him."
The answer was part of a candid interview in which Owens reflected on an athletic career that led him from UCLA (where he was a highly recruited wide receiver) to Master's (where he became an NAIA first-team All-American in 2003) to the big leagues for parts of four seasons with the Chicago White Sox.
Through it all, Owens sees that the Lord was in control.
"One of the biggest things I learned in my career is that it never goes as planned, never goes how I thought it was going to go, and the Lord is doing so many things behind the scenes that we don't always see," Owens said. "I'm a thinker. I'm always trying to figure it out, I'm always, 'What are you doing Lord. OK, you allowed this to happen. OK, that's happening, so like, what are you doing? I feel like He's up there with His arms folded looking down on me laughing: 'You have no idea, don't even try to figure out.'"
One major turn in Owens' life came in 2001 when he left the UCLA football program, where he'd been set back by injuries, to enroll at Master's. Owens had starred in football at Hart High, a four-minute drive from TMU's Newhall, California, campus, so he was familiar with the NAIA school.
Owens left a handwritten note in head coach
Monte Brooks' mailbox explaining who he was and that he was looking for an opportunity, a request he was ultimately granted with the Mustangs. Owens says one of the most challenging parts of returning to baseball after a four-year hiatus was that he had to relearn the game. Fortunately, he found Brooks to be a patient teacher.
"I'll never forget the very first game I played offense in (at Master's), I was hitting and I hit a ground ball to the first baseman," Owens said. "He bobbled it and kicked it away and instead of running through first base like you're supposed to do, I stopped on first base as if you can picture me trying not to let my foot slip off the base, like you'd picture a little league kid or my 1-year old daughter doing. I never heard the end of it from my teammates after that."
Owens says he appreciates that Brooks saw something in him that Owens didn't initially see.
"Coach Brooks really saw me as a baseball player and not just an athlete trying to play baseball," Owens said. "And I think that really helped me because he retaught me how to play and took the time to do that. It's really hard to do when you have 30 other players. He really took the time to teach me how to play while obviously managing the rest of the team and the season."
Both Owens' and Brooks' efforts paid off. Owens hit .451 in 2003,
the second highest single-season mark in TMU history, on his way to first-team NAIA All-American honors. That summer, the Montreal Expos selected Owens in the second round of the MLB Draft.
After navigating the lower rungs of professional baseball to reach the show with Chicago during parts of four seasons from 2006 to 2009, does Owens have any advice for TMU's seven current minor leaguers?
"I would tell those guys coming up to build that foundation, to continue to be in the Word because it is hard, the real world is tough, that industry is tough. There is a lot of temptation," Owens said. "There is also a lot of amazing things about it too, and so go in with an open mind but also have that armor of God on at all times."
Owens also emphasized the important of embracing "the grind."
"Embrace the failure, embrace the grind. It is a grind. A lot of people hear you play professional baseball and think you're a millionaire and fly on private planes everywhere, and it's like no, that's probably two percent of the league," Owens said. "The Minor Leagues is tough. Embrace all of it though because the experience is something that's like no other experience you're going to have in your life."
For the full interview with Owens, click here.
Previous Episodes of the Mustang Sports Feed:
Ep. 6 Men's volleyball junior Brett Norkus
Ep. 5,
Baseball senior Aidan Stout Interview
Ep. 4,
Women's basketball junior Rebekah Throns Interview
Ep. 3,
Beach volleyball coach Annett Davis Interview
Ep. 2,
Men's basketball senior Brock Gardner Interview
Ep. 1,
Women's basketball sophomore Stephanie Soares Interview
