Background: Julius Caesar Watts Jr. (born November 18, 1957) is an American politician from Oklahoma who was a college football quarterback for the Oklahoma Sooners and later played professionally in the Canadian Football League. Watts served in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1995 to 2003 as a Republican, representing Oklahoma's 4th Congressional District. Watts was born and raised in Eufaula, Oklahoma, in a rural impoverished neighborhood. After being one of the first children to attend an integrated elementary school, he became a high school quarterback and gained a football scholarship to the University of Oklahoma.
Context: Watts' 1996 reelection campaign featured state representative Ed Crocker as the Democratic candidate in a negative campaign. Crocker questioned Watts' business dealings because of tax issues for a real estate company of which Watts was the principal owner, and whether he was paying child support for one of his daughters born out of wedlock. Crocker suggested Watts might use drugs or sanction their use because he declined to participate in a voluntary drug screening in the House of Representatives. Watts denied the charge, took the test, and accused Cocker of draft dodging during the Vietnam War and later living at the "center of the West Coast drug culture." Watts was given a featured speaking role at the 1996 Republican National Convention and was re-elected with 58 percent of the vote in the 1996 U.S. House election.  Following the election, Watts switched from the Financial Services Committee to the House Transportation Committee. He was the only African-American Republican in the House and was chosen to deliver the Republican reply to President Bill Clinton's State of the Union address in February 1997, the youngest congressman and first African-American to do so. In his response, Watts focused on providing a positive vision of the Republican Party and advocated deficit and tax reduction and faith-based values. Watts had previously spoken to The Washington Times and created controversy by criticizing "race-hustling poverty pimps" as keeping African-Americans dependent on government. These remarks were viewed as critical of activist Jesse Jackson and Washington, D.C. mayor Marion Barry, and Jesse Jackson, Jr. demanded a public apology. Watts stated he did not speak about Barry and Jackson but about "some of the leadership in the black community."  In his 1998 reelection campaign against Democrat Ben Odom, Watts faced accusations about debts, unpaid taxes and over actions in a federal bribery investigation in 1991, where he arranged to receive campaign contributions from a lobbyist for telephone companies that were investigated during Watts' membership on the Oklahoma Corporation Commission. Odom used portions of a transcript to try to discredit Watts, and the accusations were widely publicized in Oklahoma. Watts argued he had been exonerated from any criminal conduct and that his financial problems were a result of losses for Oklahoma oil and gas businesses during the 1980s. He was re-elected with 62 percent of the vote.  From 1995 until 1997, Watts was only one of two black Republicans in Congress (along with Gary Franks of Connecticut). From 1997 until 2003, Watts was the only black Republican Congressman. There would not be another until the elections of Tim Scott and Allen West in 2011.
Question: Why did he play football instead?

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