NORMAN, Okla., July 1 (UPI) -- Oklahoma Rep. J.C. Watts, the lone black Republican in Congress, announced Monday that he will retire at the end of his current term and return home to assume "one of the most honored titles in all America, citizen."
Watts, a 44-year-old former Baptist youth minister and star quarterback at the University of Oklahoma, told a news conference that many people tried to change his mind, but he felt it was time to step down after eight years in Washington.
"I believe that my work in the House of Representatives at this time of life is completed," he said. "It is time to return home -- to go on with other things in my life and assume one of the most honored titles in all America, citizen."
Watts said serving in Congress, where he was elected twice to House leadership positions, was "one of the greatest honors" of his life, and he said he achieved many of his original goals, including a balanced budget, tax reductions and military improvements.
Congress has also improved itself in the past eight years, he said, becoming more "open and transparent," with smaller and more responsive staffs. "Its integrity is less open to question," he said.
Watts admitted that his political advisers "twisted my arm about every way it could possibly be twisted" to not retire and he read a letter from civil rights pioneer Rosa Parks urging him to continue.
"If you can, please remain as a pioneer on the Republican side until others come to assist you," she said. "I am glad I stayed in my seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus Dec. 1, 1955."
Watts was most recently re-elected in 2000 with 65 percent of the vote. He serves on the Armed Services Committee and is a member of the Military Readiness Subcommittee and the Procurement Subcommittee. He was twice elected chairman of the House Republican Conference, the fourth highest post in the House.
Watts, a native of Eufaula, Okla., led the University of Oklahoma to consecutive Big Eight championships and Orange Bowl victories in 1980 and 1981. From 1981 to 1986, he played for Ottawa and Toronto in the Canadian Football League and was voted the Most Valuable Player of the Grey Cup his rookie season.
Watts was a youth minister and later associate pastor of the Sunnylane Baptist Church in Del City, Okla., until 1994 when he was elected to the Oklahoma State Corporation Commission and became chairman before running for Congress in 1994.
