Is There Life After Football?

by James A. Holstein

  Players thrive in this complex cultural milieu that valorizes violence and pain.86 It’s an element of the “sport ethic” that drives players to ignore, if not invite, the challenges of pain and injury. Players are expected—and expect themselves—to endure pain and danger without backing down. It’s part of a general “culture of risk” whereby players repeatedly lay their bodies on the line in the pursuit of victory. A player demonstrates he’s a bona fide NFL player by subjecting his body to danger and pain, thereby establishing his worthiness. Embracing violence and injury is a way of demonstrating one’s “love of the game.”87

  But the stance vis-à-vis injury isn’t simply cultural. Players don’t put their bodies on the line just to satisfy psychological urges or to prove they are “real men”; they do it to keep their jobs. Seventeen hundred players hold roster spots in the NFL. The difference in ability between about half of them and hundreds of aspiring NFL players is pretty scant. Rosters (and millions of dollars) are made by playing through pain. Remember: “You can’t make the club in the tub.” Seahawks cornerback Richard Sherman, for example, has played through the disorientation and pain of a concussion and insists that he did the right thing. In his 2011 rookie season, Sherman got his “bell rung” early in the first quarter of a game with the Cincinnati Bengals. “I couldn’t see,” recalls Sherman. “The concussion blurred my vision and I played the next two quarters half blind, but there was no way I was coming off the field with so much at stake. It paid off.” As his head cleared in the third quarter, Sherman came up with the first interception of his career. A fifth round draft choice, Sherman wasn’t an established starter at the time, but parlayed that playing time and interception into a spot on an All-Rookie team and, later, All-Pro accolades. He’s gone from a fringe player to a star, and stands to make millions of dollars. It would be hard to convince Sherman—a Stanford graduate—that the risk wasn’t worth the reward.

  All of us NFL players . . . chose this profession. Concussions are going to happen to cornerbacks who go low and lead with their shoulders, wide receivers who duck into contact, safeties who tackle high and linemen who run into somebody on every single play. Sometimes players get knocked out and their concussions make news, but more often it’s a scenario like mine, where the player walks away from a hit and plays woozy or blind. Sometimes I can tell when a guy is concussed during a game—he can’t remember things or he keeps asking the same questions over and over—but I’m not going to take his health into my hands and tell anybody, because playing with injuries is a risk that guys are willing to take. . . . Today, we’re fully educating guys on the risks and we’re still playing. We have not hidden from the facts.88

  The next time he suffers a concussion? Sherman says he plans to “get back up and pretend like nothing happened.”

  Mark Schlereth’s motivations were different, but no less compelling. He risked his health for respect.

  I played for the other 52 guys in the locker room. . . . I laid it on the line for those guys. . . . I never have one time looked back on my career and had regret. I got everything and more that I could possibly get out of my body . . . and I have the respect of every guy I ever played with and every guy who ever coached me and every guy I who ever played against.89

  Remember Jermichael Finley, prone and paralyzed, unable to breathe in the aftermath of a jarring tackle? As frightened as he was at the moment, Finley remains committed to the sports ethic. A week after his injury, only a few days out of the hospital, he was eager to get back on the field:

  Of course I plan to play football again. This is what I love to do. . . . There is no better feeling in the world than making the “Lambeau Leap” into the stands, and I fully intend on having that surreal feeling again soon. . . . I’ve worked my entire life to do what I do on that football field. . . . The one thing no one can question about me is how hard I work to be a great football player. I want this. I need this. It’s everything to me.90

  Mark Schlereth offers a final benediction on players’ commitment to the sports ethic:

  No matter how battered and bruised, I never lost sight of the fact that I was living out my childhood dream. And dreams are not granted or given—they come with a price. No matter what your goal, you’re bound to face adversity, and it’s during that adversity, when you find out what you’re made of.91

  5

  “ALL THAT DOUGH: WHERE DID IT GO?”

  I was absolutely living the good life. . . . When my first contract was up, if my football career had ended at that moment, I wouldn’t have had any money at all. I spent everything I had.

  —Chris McAlister, former Ravens cornerback and tenth overall draft choice in 19991

  Chris McAlister’s saga is all too familiar. In 2009, he was cut with two years left on his seven-year, $55 million contract. Things went downhill ever since. Having squandered about $50 million, McAlister is living at home with his parents: “I have been unemployed since 2009. I have no income . . . I live in my parent’s home. My parents provide me with my basic living expenses as I do not have the funds to do so.” He also owes multiple child support payments.2

  Dozens of media accounts portray former NFL players as down and out after extravagantly spending the fortunes they made in the game. It’s accepted wisdom that NFL players and alumni are both rich and irresponsible. The master narratives: “Blowing money!” and “Going broke!” Sadly, too many of the stories are true. Nevertheless, and despite the sensational headlines, most former NFL players are doing fine; we just don’t hear about them. “Warren Sapp Is Broke!” is simply more intriguing than “Not Broke: How NFL Players Stay Financially Stable after the Game Ends,” even though the modest everyday prosperity of life after football is far more common than most people realize.3 For example, NFL alumni report higher annual incomes than their age peers and most have accumulated substantial assets.4

  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.”5 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.6 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.7 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.8

  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.9

  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.

  Profligate Spending

  “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.10 Others drop $100,000 on birthday presents for themselves, burn hundred-dollar bills for fun, and run up $100,000 bar tabs.11 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.12

  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.13 While not questioning SI’s basic premise that many NFL players squander fortunes, we’re skeptical about the “78 percent” figure.14 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 $88,000.15 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.16

  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.”17 Hall of Famer Deion Sanders reportedly owned nearly 2,000 suits.18 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.”19

  Impulse Economics

  Many players feel they’ve struck it rich when they reach the NFL. Top draft choices recei
ve 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.20 Too often, newly minted NFL players take the same paths. Research on the happiness of lottery winners says there is no guarantee of contentment.21 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.22 Not all players take the financial plunge, but they’re all tempted.