T.O.: NO SUICIDE ATTEMPT DALLAS RECEIVER DENIES POLICE REPORT OF OD.

Byline: BILLY WITZ Staff Writer

The Terrell Owens circus took a sobering turn Wednesday, away from the outrageous and outlandish, and toward whether the Dallas Cowboys' star receiver had attempted suicide.

Owens denied a police report that stated his trip to the emergency room Tuesday night was a result of ``a drug overdose,'' saying instead that he became groggy when he mixed painkillers with workout supplements.

``It's very unfortunate for it to go from an allergic reaction to a suicide attempt,'' Owens said at a news conference at the team's headquarters in Irving, Texas.

Owens said he was not depressed and said the confusion might have stemmed from his publicist discovering him incoherent with an empty bottle of pain medication. She phoned paramedics, who took him to Baylor University Medical Center.

Smiling often and at one point apologizing to the Cowboys for causing any trouble, Owens seemed more bemused than bothered as he sat before the media in a news conference that was shown live on ESPN.

As if to show he was fine, Owens practiced with the Cowboys on Wednesday just hours after he was released from the hospital and said he plans to play Sunday against Tennessee, despite surgery last week for a broken bone in his right hand. The injury was expected to keep him out two weeks.

According to police, when paramedics arrived at Owens' home at 8 p.m. Tuesday, they were told by his publicist, Kim Etheredge, that a 40-count bottle of hydrocodone, a generic form of Vicodin that had been prescribed for Owens on Sept. 18 -- the day of his surgery -- was empty and that until that day he'd only taken five pills. She'd also removed two pills from his mouth.

When Owens was asked by paramedics if he was trying to harm himself, he answered, ``yes.''

``I was kind of out of it,'' said Owens, who denied that his stomach was pumped. ``I can barely even remember the doctors, much less the police officers asking me questions.

``The rumor of me taking 35 pills is absurd. I don't think I would be here if I had taken 35 pills.''

Etheredge, who also appeared at the news conference, said she did not take any pills out of Owens' mouth, and was upset anyone think he would consider suicide.

``Terrell has 25 million reasons why he should be alive,'' Etheredge said, alluding to the three-year, $25 million contract he signed with the Cowboys in March.

Former 49ers coach Bill Walsh, who was an executive with the team during Owens' tenure there from 1996-2003, told the San Francisco Chronicle on Wednesday that he tried to get Owens to seek professional psychiatric treatment during the 2000 season, but that Owens angrily rejected the suggestion.

``He has his own values, I guess you could say, and his own way of doing things and you really weren't going to change his mind,'' Walsh said. ``You couldn't really penetrate it, what was in his mind.''

Dr. Harry Edwards, a noted sociologist and a longtime consultant with the San Francisco 49ers, for whom Owens played from 1996-2003, said he was concerned for Owens.

``People need to understand there's a human being behind the uniform, behind the hype, behind the antics,'' Edwards said in a phone interview. ``Irrespective of what happened, he's going to need support. ...''

Edwards, speaking generally, said that anyone dealing with a mental illness in sports has it doubly tough.

``There's no difference between these young men and the rest of society other than two things,'' Edwards said. ``One, they do one thing better than anybody else and that's play football; and two, as a consequence they're under an intense spotlight and pressure, irrespective of what other issues they might have. That's a lot to deal with.''

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