Raleigh C. Owens is a former professional American football

American football

American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...

 wide receiver

Wide receiver

A wide receiver is an offensive position in American and Canadian football, and is the key player in most of the passing plays. Only players in the backfield or the ends on the line are eligible to catch a forward pass. The two players who begin play at the ends of the offensive line are eligible...

 from 1957 through 1964. Owens graduated from high school

High school

High school is a term used in parts of the English speaking world to describe institutions which provide all or part of secondary education. The term is often incorporated into the name of such institutions....

 in Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica, California

Santa Monica is a beachfront city in western Los Angeles County, California, US. Situated on Santa Monica Bay, it is surrounded on three sides by the city of Los Angeles — Pacific Palisades on the northwest, Brentwood on the north, West Los Angeles on the northeast, Mar Vista on the east, and...

 and attended the College of Idaho (where his teammate was Elgin Baylor

Elgin Baylor

Elgin Gay Baylor is a retired Hall of Fame American basketball player and former NBA general manager who played 13 seasons as a forward for the NBA's Minneapolis Lakers/Los Angeles Lakers....

) and played amateur basketball

Basketball

Basketball is a team sport in which two teams of five players try to score points by throwing or "shooting" a ball through the top of a basketball hoop while following a set of rules...

 with the Seattle

Seattle, Washington

Seattle is the county seat of King County, Washington. With 608,660 residents as of the 2010 Census, Seattle is the largest city in the Northwestern United States. The Seattle metropolitan area of about 3.4 million inhabitants is the 15th largest metropolitan area in the country...

-based Buchan Bakers the year after their national championship.

Owens then joined the NFL; he had his best years playing for the San Francisco 49ers

San Francisco 49ers

The San Francisco 49ers are a professional American football team based in San Francisco, California, playing in the West Division of the National Football Conference in the National Football League . The team was founded in 1946 as a charter member of the All-America Football Conference and...

 where he was noted for his "alley oop

Alley Oop

Alley Oop is a syndicated comic strip, created in 1932 by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the popular and influential strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association...

" receptions of quarterback

Quarterback

Quarterback is a position in American and Canadian football. Quarterbacks are members of the offensive team and line up directly behind the offensive line...

 Y.A. Tittle's passes. This play was essentially a jump ball were Tittle would throw the ball high in the air in the end zone like a jump ball and Owens would go up and get it. The tall, long-armed Owens was known for his jumping ability and once blocked a field goal by jumping up at the cross bar and knocking it down. Owens' best year by far was 1961 when he gained over 1,000 yards receiving.