Is There Life After Football? (22 page)

And there's probably an Andre Blackburn for every Chris McAlister. Blackburn played in the same era as McAlister. A third round draft
choice and solid starter for over a decade, he never matched McAlister's star status or huge contracts. Nor did he subscribe to McAlister's spending habits: “My 12 years in the NFL, I didn't spend any of the money that I made through my regular season contracts.”
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Blackburn lived off his signing bonuses, postseason game checks, and side income. He's hosted radio and TV shows, done promotional appearances and autograph signings. Since retiring, he's run a modest chain of franchise ice cream shops. He lives a comfortable life, nothing extravagant, but the public never hears his story.

It's important to be realistic about both earning and spending in the NFL. First, players since the free agency era have earned a lot of money—often millions—
if they actually held roster spots for a few years
. Second, players prior to free agency made far less. Third, and perhaps most significantly, due to the vagaries of NFL contracts and salary structures, as well as the low pay scales for older retirees, the money made in the NFL is often overestimated.
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When figuring a player's cumulative assets, we must also remember that a player may pay his agent around three percent of what he earns. Taxes take another substantial chunk of his salary, perhaps 35 to 47 percent for top-earning players, and around 25 percent for younger players on the bottom salary rungs. Subtract union dues, retirement savings, the cost of game tickets for family and friends, and other miscellaneous “payroll deductions,” and some players actually take home as little as 40 percent of their gross pay.
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No doubt most former players pocketed a healthy sum, but for many, it doesn't amount to millions.

We should also recognize that life in and after the NFL is legitimately expensive in ways that most people don't recognize. There are myriad hidden costs—expenditures that players themselves fail to properly take into account. Even the most frugal players can be surprised by the cost of NFL living. George Koonce never really lived in the “fast lane,” but his life proved pricier than he anticipated:

Probably the biggest expense is your residence—your house. Actually, it's usually two houses, multiple residences. You go to Green Bay and you need a place to
stay during the season. So you maybe take a hotel until you're sure you make the squad, then you lease an apartment or condo. That's not too bad in Green Bay, but it's a lot in New York or San Francisco. And it's probably for the full year. Most of the guys split right away [after the season] because they have families back home. So you leave town and you get a place there too. Everyone advises you to invest in property, so you buy a house. Lots of guys, for example, played at the “U” [University of Miami] so they buy nice places in Florida. But you still have the place in Green Bay to pay for too. So, even if you aren't trying to be extravagant, you're paying off two big houses. . . . You got property taxes, and upkeep. You got two sets of everything, one for each house. You might be paying somebody half the time just to look after each place, two yard maintenance guys. Then you have two telephone bills, two cable bills, two electric bills, and two homes to furnish
.
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Players and their families also spend a lot on travel—moving back and forth between residences. Running a player's household has hidden expenses too. While wives and girlfriends typically manage all household details, unattached players often hire domestic surrogates—professionals to cook, or entourage members to manage mundane household details while the players are “at work.” This isn't a personal extravagance. It's a household management strategy.

Then there's “personal maintenance” as well. Many players invest heavily in staying healthy, recovering from injury, working out, and staying in shape. Recently, standout linebacker James Harrison recounted just how much he spends on his body, admitting to keeping six different masseuses, a homeopathic doctor, chiropractor, and acupuncturist on his payroll:

My body is what helps me to make money. Whatever there is that I need to do to try and make myself better or get myself healthy, I'm going to do it. It wouldn't be unreasonable to say that I spend anywhere between $400,000 and $600,000 on body work, as far as taking care of my body, year-in and year-out. . . . I rent a hyperbaric chamber [a sealed, pressurized
compartment used to deliver 100 percent oxygen] when I'm in Arizona [in the off season]. I have massages, and I bring people in from New York, Arizona to where I'm at.
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Harrison's former Steelers teammates used to call him a “massage whore,” in honor of the several hours of massages he received each day. Excessive spending? Perhaps. But, for some, it's a reasonable career investment.

When all is said and done, most NFL players earn substantial money, yet their everyday lives are justifiably expensive. The complexities of their financial lives—both during and after football—certainly bear scrutiny, if only to understand how some do so well after they leave the game, while others' finances plummet.

“Man, you crazy!” exclaimed Terrell Owens when he heard about Adam “Pacman” Jones's spending spree. Evidently without hyperbole, Jones told a 2012 NFL Rookie Symposium that he once spent over a million dollars in one Las Vegas weekend.
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Others drop $100,000 on birthday presents for themselves, burn hundred-dollar bills for fun, and run up $100,000 bar tabs.
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Beyond such shocking anecdotes, however, a more substantial basis for the myth that most former NFL players are broke traces back to a 2009
Sports Illustrated
article, “How (and Why) Athletes Go Broke,” by Pablo S. Torre. Literally scores of journalists, authors, financial analysts, and internet sites repeat, if not quote, the following maxim:

Athletes from the nation's biggest and most profitable leagues—the NBA, NFL, and Major League Baseball—are suffering from a financial pandemic. Although salaries have risen steadily during the last three decades, reports from a host of sources (athletes, players' associations, agents and financial advisers) indicate that . . . [
b
]
y the time they have been retired for two years, 78% of former NFL players have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress
because of joblessness or divorce.
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Torre is a highly reputable journalist and
SI
is a trusted source, yet a thorough internet search fails to reveal any further details about how this figure was derived.
SI
and myriad other sources provide copious anecdotal evidence that NFL players and former players are extravagant spenders, but the claim that four out of five former players “have gone bankrupt or are under financial stress” is vague and problematic.

Sociologist Joel Best cautions us about media aphorisms that use terms like “epidemic” or “pandemic” because such claims are often more sensationalized and rhetorical than factual. With the proliferation of internet journalists, pundits, and bloggers, word travels far and fast, even if it's not verifiable, so contemporary axioms are even more suspect.
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While not questioning
SI
's basic premise that many NFL players squander fortunes, we're skeptical about the “78 percent” figure.
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The NFL Player Care study systematically assessed a large random sample of former NFL players and found little to support the claim that a vast majority “go broke”—“losing most or all of their money”—as
SI
trumpets and myriad others echo. The study did find that about ten percent of the former players surveyed had incomes below
twice
the poverty level, but also established the annual median income of the sample at around $88,000.
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Retired players sometimes spoke to us about financial difficulties, but only one of several dozen that we interviewed indicated that he might be under
severe
financial duress. Many said that things were not as “flush” as during their playing days, but they didn't say they were broke. The upshot of our skepticism is not to deny that many former NFL players suffer financial woes, but to caution readers about accepting undocumented, sensationalized claims, and to temper the image of
all
former players as wanton spendthrifts.

That said, far too many former NFL players have little to show for their years of financial bonanza. Warren Sapp, former All-Pro defensive lineman and media star since his retirement, may be the most egregious recent example. According to media reports, Sapp made
$82,185,056 during his NFL career. He ended up with $826.04 in his bank account. In 2012, he filed for bankruptcy, declaring that he had $6.45 million in assets but owed more than $6.7 million. Among his assets: a 15,000-square-foot house, purchased for $4.1 million, complete with swimming pool, water slide, two-story wine cellar, five full bathrooms, a movie theater, and a lake of its own; 240 pairs of Air Jordan sneakers; and a $1,200 lion skin rug. Sapp had two children with his ex-wife. He fathered four other children with four different women. He owes them a total of $75,495 a month in alimony and child support. Since he quit playing, Sapp has worked on Showtime's
Inside the NFL
and the NFL Network's
NFL Total Access
as well as finishing second on season seven of
Dancing with the Stars
. He's probably made over $100,000 per month since he retired, but he can't seem to make ends meet.
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Andre Rison, an All-Pro veteran of seven NFL teams, used money to “make it rain”—tossing currency in the air and watching it float to the ground. Rison and Leon Searcy, who played 11 years with four teams, were fond of “bling”—expensive jewelry. “Custom diamond pieces, chains, crosses, you name it. I guarantee I spent $1 million on jewelry,” admits Rison. Searcy indulged in clothes: “You got to dress up. Everybody has their suit guy. Tailor made. The Rolex and bracelet on your wrist. And then you had to throw in a mink.”
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Hall of Famer Deion Sanders reportedly owned nearly 2,000 suits.
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Adds JaMarcus Russell, the first overall pick of the 2007 NFL draft, “Probably the dumbest thing I ever bought was a fox coat, with a big hood on it and a gray stripe running down it. Made me almost look like a silver back [gorilla]. I wore it maybe three times.” But these are petty cash items compared to the extravagance of Keith McCants, the number four pick in the 1990 draft: “$7.6 million, 2.5 million a year. No. 1 all time—that's the biggest contract in the NFL for a defensive player. . . . I bought myself a yacht, a mansion, and a couple of cars. That ain't a million dollars. That's several million. I pretty much gave it away.”
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Many players feel they've struck it rich when they reach the NFL. Top draft choices receive million-dollar signing bonuses, but even an undrafted rookie receives a $925 weekly stipend during training camp. If he makes the practice squad, he'll earn $5,700 a week. If he makes the roster, he jumps to over $400,000 for the season. It's new financial territory for most players.

Some say that an NFL player signing his first contract is like a lottery winner—a kid who's suddenly rich, with absolutely no financial responsibilities, acumen, or expertise. Virtually overnight, some players have more money than they know what to do with; even the lowest paid have more cash on hand than they've ever seen. But, like other lottery winners, NFL players discover pitfalls that they can't handle. Tales abound of lottery winners losing their winnings almost as fast as they get them via spending sprees, shaky investments, conniving wives or boyfriends, or shady money mangers.
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Too often, newly minted NFL players take the same paths. Research on the happiness of lottery winners says there is no guarantee of contentment.
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There seems to be a ceiling on just how happy new-found wealth can make a person. They call it “happiness adaptation.” But with plenty of cash on hand, what's to stop a player from escalating his spending in search of greater heights, upping the ante on exhilaration.
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Not all players take the financial plunge, but they're all tempted.

“With athletes, there's an extraordinary metamorphosis of financial challenge,” says sports agent Leigh Steinberg, who has represented eight number-one NFL draft choices (and who, ironically, filed for bankruptcy himself in 2012). Some NFL observers say newly rich rookies often can't write a check and have never opened a bank account. They don't know a thing about taxes and payroll deductions. Steinberg adds, “Coming off college scholarships, they probably haven't even learned the basics of budgeting or keeping receipts.”
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The NFL and NFLPA are combating this through aggressive programming at the league-wide and team levels.
They hold orientation symposia and classes directed specifically at teaching younger players how to manage their finances.
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Nevertheless, many players simply aren't ready to take advantage of the advice. Former NFL defensive back and current investment analyst Eugene Profit elaborates, “[Players] don't have the experience to handle the amount of money they are suddenly endowed with. Naturally, they want to go out and do the one thing they always dreamed about. ‘I need to buy that house on the hill or that Mercedes.'”
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It's not that football players or lottery winners are incapable of handling their good financial fortunes. It's just that they may be completely unprepared for the sudden opportunity and responsibility. They simply aren't ready for “prime time.”

“It wasn't money. ‘Loot!' That's what we called it back in the day. . . . My first check was for $500,000. Then I went on a splurge.” That was Andre Rison's approach to money management. A cornerback for five different teams, Dante Wesley's first contract was relatively modest, but, as he recalls, “The first thing I bought for myself was a Cadillac Escalade.” Bart Scott, a linebacker for the Ravens and Jets, was so far out of his element that he didn't know what to do with his bonus check: “I cashed my first NFL check at a check cashing joint, and they just laughed at me.” But as Leon Searcy reminds us, “I am here to tell you. It doesn't last forever. Before you know it, I looked up and I was broke.”
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Take it from Raghib “Rocket” Ismail, former NFL and CFL wide receiver: “I was so busy focusing on football that the first year was suddenly over. I'd started with this $4 million base salary, but then I looked at my bank statement, and I just went, ‘What the . . .?'”
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Incredulous at today's relative wealth, Will Siegel, a 1950s veteran, agrees that contemporary players aren't prepared to manage their money: