Is There Life After Football? (25 page)

Clearly, one of the greatest challenges of managing new-found wealth is learning to say “No.” George Koonce isn't the only player to hear the “tragic” stories of folks he's known for years. Leon Searcy recalls some of his own:

People that you have known all of your life all of a sudden can't function without you. “I can't keep the lights on. I can't pay the mortgage, my car note is due.” They knew when payday was. They knew it better than I did. They had it circled on the calendar. . . . They were sitting out in the parking lot, leaning up against my car, asking me to help pay for their car note. . . . You give two or three thousand to eight to ten guys. “I got to have $200 here, $3,000 there. I got this child support; I got to pay my baby mama.” I couldn't say no.
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But he had to learn. So did Bart Scott, who recalls taking care of five different households. “I paid more rent than government assistance.” Or Bernie Kosar, who, over the years, claims to have helped out “25 to 50” families. Ed Butowsky chimes in: “I have clients of mine who literally have six houses, for their parents and friends. And they bought them all, and they are making mortgage payments. When their career ends, what are they going to do? Call up and say it is time to move out.” Winfred Tubbs adds an exclamation point. “Out of 100 percent of the money I loaned out I didn't get one cent paid back.” “It's hard to tell people that you love, ‘No!'” says Herman Edwards.
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Braylon Edwards amplifies the sentiment:

It's hard as hell. You know, your sister might come up to you. Your auntie . . . You might have to tell your mother no. And I know that sounds ridiculous. . . . You have to own your money. The checks that they sending you . . . it says “Braylon
Edwards.” . . . These are your checks. The bank account is in your name. The money that they're trying to come after is yours
.
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Former NFL players are more likely to be currently married than comparable men in the general population. They're divorced at rates approximately the same as their age peers.
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While it's inaccurate to say their married lives are just like everyone else's, their marriages are not as unstable as popular opinion would have it—or that the NFL apparently thinks they might be. Jerry Richardson, former NFL player and current owner of the Carolina Panthers, once told his team that divorce was the biggest financial threat they might face. He was probably referring to some of the huge financial settlements that have resulted from divorces involving highly paid NFL stars.
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While Richardson is undoubtedly exaggerating, he reflects a prevalent ambivalence around the league about marriage and women. On one hand they are viewed as steadying forces. On the other, they're seen as threats to the NFL's pervasive control of players' lives. From management's point of view, marriage is a variable to be managed carefully.

This is a very instrumental outlook on players' domestic arrangements. By and large, management thinks marriage is a sign of maturity. Married players are likely to give up the “fast” life and become more committed to settling down to business. The message comes across to players, as George Koonce recalls:

I got caught up in what do the coaches want to see. I think the coaches feel like if you're married, you got a family, you're more responsible. [One player], my idol, he was married. Reggie White, the leader of the team, he was married. So I'm looking like this is what you're supposed to do
.
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Some younger players think that being married actually improves their chances of making a roster, so they make the commitment. Of course, that commitment is sometimes just for appearance's sake.
“These same
guys never stopped seeing multiple girlfriends because they never developed an understanding of what it meant to love another individual as much as they loved themselves and football,”
recalls Koonce.
“To them, it was perfectly normal to give themselves physically but never emotionally to these women. These same players were shocked when their wives filed for divorce.”
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The NFL's instrumental perspective carries over to divorce. It's viewed as a distraction that needs to be “handled” if it can't be avoided. Indeed, it's sufficiently important to be a prime topic at the annual Rookie Symposium, an orientation program for new players. The advice dispensed there, of course, comes mainly in the form of graphic warnings about women who will try to entrap NFL players to tap into their big contracts—“gold diggers,” as they are called—and admonitions to players to protect themselves with prenuptial agreements and other financial safeguards.
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Realistically, while divorce won't be a major financial problem for most players, it has deflated many post-career bank accounts. Bernie Kosar, for example, claims his divorce cost him between four and five million dollars.
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Troy Aikman reportedly paid over $1.75 million to settle his divorce.
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There are plenty of accounts of other expensive NFL divorce settlements, which tend to emphasize the cost to players and overlook the investments that wives may have put into the marriages.

While there's no systematic evidence confirming that NFL players father more out-of-wedlock children than others of their age and background, anecdotal evidence abounds suggesting that a substantial number of players and former players are paying child support. Indeed, a 1998
Sports Illustrated
article titled “Paternity Ward” reported that the number of out-of-wedlock children fathered by professional athletes is “staggering.” One sports agent says he spends more time dealing with paternity claims than he does negotiating contracts. Court records document myriad cases where former players are being held responsible for up to a dozen children fathered out of wedlock.
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Paternity at this volume can be an expensive proposition. In some states, a man proven to have fathered a child may be ordered to pay roughly 20 percent of his income as child support until the child turns 18. While the average annual child support payment in the U.S. (2010) is about $5,200, 20 percent of an average NFL salary comes to quite a bit more than that (approximately $154,000). Sometimes judges will cap support payments—for example, at $10,000 per month per child—regardless of the father's income.
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Recently, we've seen a number of highly publicized figures for NFL fathers: As already noted, Warren Sapp owes a total of $75,495 a month in alimony and child support.
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Antonio Cromartie reportedly owes $294,000 a year in child support payments and recently took a $500,000 advance on his $1.7 million salary to cover child support.
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Former NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens says he owes child support of $240,000 annually for each of his four children by four different women. Travis Henry claimed to have a child support bill of $17,000 a month in 2009.
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Despite the financial horror stories, most NFL players fare pretty well financially after retirement. Even if the financial stream slows to a trickle, a modest lifestyle seems well within reach of most players. (Of course, as we've seen, modest aspirations aren't the NFL norm.) In an effort to contextualize the “Greedy Players” myth, journalist Hank Koebler of the
Huffington Post
has constructed a scenario describing just how long an “average” player's earnings might support himself (and his family) in an “average” lifestyle. Assuming an average career of 3.5 years, paid at the median salary of $770,000 per year, a player could expect total football earnings of about $2.7 million. Conservatively assuming that the player actually takes home around 40 percent of his gross pay after taxes, agent's fees, and other payroll deductions, that leaves the player with a bit over a million dollars in hand. The United States Census Bureau listed the median U.S. household income for 2011 as around $50,000. Continuing
to assume that a player would choose to live within the means of the average household, the accumulated NFL take-home pay for his average career could last him around 20 years, not counting any interest or investment income the savings might generate. That should carry the player to the time when he can tap into his NFL pension (at age 45). While this financial scenario might be quite a comedown from high times in the NFL, it demonstrates that being broke isn't the only alternative for former players who haven't struck it rich.
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And it provides an interesting counterpoint to Darryl Gatlin's account of players' “obligation” to the NFL lifestyle, raising the question: Does
human nature
inevitably say, “You have $3 million, you are supposed to live like you have $3 million. So you can spend $3 million”? It's more likely that this is the NFL player ethos talking.

Many NFL alumni turn down the volume on the ethos and manage their financial circumstances responsibly, adroitly, and
conservatively
. Spending isn't a personal compulsion or an irresistible cultural imperative. It isn't necessarily contagious. Most players avoid the “broke” syndrome. Vestiges of the ethos may keep former players from bragging about their conservative lifestyles or their tax-free municipal bonds, but their success stories also need to be told.

It goes without saying that self-discipline is the foundation of these stories. They also include chapters about sensible, supportive wives and families, and concrete plans for life after football. Prudence and foresight are cross-cutting themes. Hakeem Chapman—who grew up in the same Compton neighborhood as Tommy Jones—offers compelling reflections.

Prepare for tomorrow. That means look at the things that you want to do with your life. Do you want to be in a position where you are comfortable? That worried me a lot. . . . The kids now, they [should be buying] the things that you need right now, not what you want. That is the key thing. Later on, you can buy what you want. . . . There are players, they sign a $10 million guaranteed thing [contract], OK. They don't realize that the
government gets one third of it, 35 percent. Then they [players] are going to go for [big ticket items that lose their value]. . . . You should buy the things that you need, not the things that you want.
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While there's no strict formula, the trick is to resist the NFL imperative to live large. Rod Smith, formerly of the Denver Broncos, points the way. Smith graduated from college with three business-related degrees but no ticket to the NFL. He wasn't drafted in 1994, went to training camp and was cut by the Patriots, made the Broncos practice squad, and eventually became a stalwart wide receiver. His humble beginnings taught him some important lessons:

I had a chance to be in the NFL, but not a chance to be in the NFL lifestyle, because I didn't have the income for it. I didn't come into the NFL with money. I started on the practice squad making $60,000 my first year. It was a whole lot of money to me, but nothing in comparison to the lifestyle of the guys I was around in the locker room. I was making $3,000 a week and people around me were making $100,000 per week. You could get caught up in that.
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Smith's first lesson was clear: Beware of “livin' large” beyond one's means. It stuck with him, and he remained frugal, even as his contracts grew:

The most luxurious thing I bought was my house. I wasn't a big jewelry or car guy. I don't have Ferraris and Bentleys. I had a motto that I lived by, “There are two places I want to look good at: home and practice.” Most guys get caught up in looking good on the streets. If you have to show people you have money, you're not rich.
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Smith's caution was reinforced by fear—fear that it could suddenly end and he would be out in the financial cold, even if he was, by the latter part of his career, making good money:

I snuck up on my locker for 14 years. I saw them fire people, and when they did, the first thing they did was take their name off of the locker and put their stuff in a trash bag. That was my fear. For 14 years, I walked up to my locker, saw my name and thought, “I have one more day.” I was always in fear that one day they were going to decide I wasn't good enough. I took advantage of every day and went to work.
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It's especially significant that this is
Rod Smith
talking: a 12-year veteran; twice All-Pro; three time Pro-Bowler; two Super Bowl rings; holder of the NFL record for catches, yards, and touchdowns by an undrafted player. If his fear of failure was eventually unfounded, it was powerful motivation to keep his eye on the eventual financial prize and stay focused on the big picture. Smith worries that today's players lack the work ethic, the foresight, and the humility to maximize their prospects: “You have these guys who call themselves celebrities now. They are not professional football players. As soon as the reality show is over, real life hits, your career is over and you are broke. If you look down and there aren't cleats on your feet, that's a problem.” Smith's apprehension about his career ending made him “more conservative” and ultimately more financially successful. “That fear has me here [after retirement], living the way I want to live.
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When all is said and done, we're left with opposing images of financial lives after football. One has players literally spending themselves into oblivion during and after their careers, supporting family and friends, livin' large, taking bad advice, and making bad investments. A competing vision shows young men conscientiously building financial security, spending conservatively, investing wisely, partnering with sound advisors and, above all, planning for life after football. Why, then, do so many players choose the extravagant path?