WILLIAM "BILL" OWENS
Baseball Star. Businessman. Carpenter. King of Pool. William J. Owens, known as Bill to the long-time residents of the Old Southside, was a true renaissance man in his 98 years of life. He was born in Haughville and was one of eleven children (Recorder Staff). His father was raised as a slave. He believed children were meant to work, and considered baseball to be a nonsensical use of time. Even with punishment looming over them, Owens and his brothers would leave their chores and head to a nearby lot to play. Despite his father’s aversion to sports, Bill managed to make a name for himself on the baseball field (Whitfield).
PLAY BALL!
Bill Owens' Passion for the Favorite American Pasttime
Owens was a lover of sports from a young age. At the young age of 9, his sister went out to call him home and found he’d knocked a chunk off of the family barn (3). In 1923, Bill Owens began to search for a career in baseball. His only option at the time was to play in the Negro Leagues, which had been formed just three years prior (4). In his ten years in the Negro Leagues, Owens played for twelve different teams, including the Detroit Stars, the Chicago American Giants, and the Indianapolis ABCs. He was never the best batter, but he excelled in his main positions of pitcher, shortstop, and third base.
Owens believed that if it weren’t for the barrier of segregation and prejudice, he could have played in the major leagues, which wasn’t integrated until ten years after he retired in 1933. Racial tensions could be seen throughout his experiences in the Negro League. The members played because they loved the game; they often were not paid every week for their work and tended to rely on other sources of income to provide for themselves. When traveling to different cities for games, the players had to stay in “colored hotels,” or even sleep in their cars if white hotels wouldn’t accept them (5;6).
Baseball was one of the passions in Owens’s life. He reminisced fondly on his years in the Negro league and continued to be a fan throughout his life. He was proud to watch African-American players of all sports succeed in their leagues, as he felt that he helped make it possible. While the Negro Leagues are often portrayed as a small part of history, they, and players like Bill Owens, made the integration of sports possible through their perseverance and passion (3).
“No matter what you do in life, be sure you include school.”
-Bill Owens (2)
THE VALUE OF EDUCATION
Owens was well known for advocating the pursuit of education. He learned first-hand what it was like to miss out on one; he dropped out of School 63 in the third grade to help support his family (1). He later returned to complete eighth grade when his own daughter, Rita Curry, was in the third grade. In 1992, Curry received a call from her father, who broke down in tears and called himself an uneducated fool (1;3).
“… I realized then what I had done. I had lost my chance, I had not won. I had thrown away my working tools, and turned myself into an uneducated fool.”
-Kristena Ross (2)
He had read the poem The Uneducated Fool by Kristena Ross, and it touched him deeply. He was devastated that he had not gone to school, and felt that if he could finish his GED, he’d have done just about everything he wanted in life (2). The common saying goes “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks,” but Bill Owens never saw himself as old (3). He was determined to get an education.
The pursuit began with a call into “GED on TV,” which was a general equivalency diploma course designed for people of all ages. He completed an exam to determine his skill level before beginning, and then paid $21 for three workbooks covering social studies, science math, reading, and writing (2).
He worked with tutors to study the materials and by 1996, he was awarded an honorary GED from State Superintendent of Instruction Suellen Reed (3;7). According to Pat Browne in 1996, the supervisor of Multicultural Education at IPS, Owens had mentored thousands of students to help them understand the value of pursuing education. (7). In 1996, he was selected as one of ten Indianapolis community elders to be inducted into the Elders’ Council by IPS’s Office of Arican-Centered/Multicultural Education (1).
Kristena Ross’s The Uneducated Fool changed the course of Bill Owens’s life. The poem held such value to him that it was printed on the back of his obituary. His daughter spent a number of years visiting school and sharing the powerful poem with the hopes of keeping kids in school. She said that even today, twenty-one years after his death, her great-grandchildren have been influenced by her father. Owens instilled the value of their education, hard-work, and love of sports at a young age (3).
LATER LIFE
Owens's Return to the Old Southside
After retiring from baseball, Bill Owens made a name for himself in the business world. He opened up a tavern and pool room on the south side, and he welcomed anyone inside. Outside of baseball, another passion of Owens was that of pool. He was called the King of Pool by some. He could be found every day, with the exception of Sunday in a pool room from 2 PM to 5 PM playing pool, often betting against other players. He played against a pool shark for a day and a half before finally winning. He participated in Indianapolis City Bank Pool Tournament in 1958 and placed third. Unfortunately, he ended up losing the tavern and a large sum of money around 1949 because he lost a bet to a few local men. His spirit was not bothered, however, as he continued to play pool until he was about 93 years old.
In the later years of his life, Bill Owens dedicated much of his time to helping and teaching others in his community. He frequently visited the Concord Center and assisted in programs for youth and seniors; his daughter reflected that he never considered himself to be one of the seniors, telling her he was going down to see “the old folks” at the center (3).
He loved encourage children to be their best, to work hard, and to live meaningful lives. He organized sports for the youth of both the south and east sides of Indianapolis. He taught them how to play baseball and coached teams. In 1979, he taught children how to paint at the Interfaith Home, and in 1996, he participated in a project at Conner Prairie to share his life experiences with about 2,400 students. He, of course, encouraged them to complete their educations (1).
SOURCES
Recorder Staff. “It’s never too late to get an education.” . August 3, 1996.
Whitfield, Ann-Marie. “Man, 92, hits the TV for diploma.” December 27, 1993.
Phone Interview with Rita Curry, 2020
Jewell, Anthony. “Diamond heritage lives on.” . April 14, 1996.
Carpenter, Dan. “Player’s color was strikes 1, 2 and 3.” . September 24, 1985.
Urquides, Heather. “Squeeze Play.” June 10, 1997.
Nancrede, Sally Falk. “94-year-old man knows value of education.” July 26, 1996.
Fears, Melissa. “Negro League players honored at Washington Park.” , July 21, 2011. http://www.indianapolisrecorder.com/article_166269ac-b3cc-11e0-aeb8-001cc4c03286.html