Sport Heroes woes

Hello Blog readers, today I want to talk about something I thought about as I watched “Mike and Mike” this morning on ESPN. As usual, Dwayne Wade made a stupid comment. (When you get paid to train ten hours a day and to play for two hours to shoot a ball in a hoop you lose some IQ points, apparently.) And I got to thinking about the new "Big 3" in Miami and you know what I realized?! A sports superstar’s life kind of…sucks.


You are attacked for everything; LeBron will never be able to peacefully walk in his hometown again. He probably won’t be able to go to any of the top cities that had bids in for him. But, I don’t pity him; I still feel he did it unprofessionally.

Yet I got to thinking and looked into Sports "heroes" deeper and I realized we have an obsession in this industry for the contracts. We ALL look up and care about how much these players are making a year, making a game, making an inning. How long is the commitment? How much upfront? Now it’s no secret these guys make tons more than they should. Breaking a hundred million in just a sports contract alone isn’t unprecedented anymore. In fact we say "eh coulda got someone else but OK.” Remember when A-rod got his contract to the Yankees? "Oh my goodness that’s more than my entire family will make in my life! All for hitting a baseball and stomaching Madonna?!"

These people make a lot of money but I want to bring up a statistic that shocked me.

Did you know 7 out of 10 professional athletes go bankrupt within 10 years after retiring? Hundreds of Millions in endorsements and in contracts, all too just go bankrupt? Anyone reading this will say "I could live off that for the rest of my life and then some".

I probably could too HOWEVER look at how they are paid.

Some are paid at the end of the year in bulk unlike us where we get a small amount of pay every two weeks. Imagine if ten million dollars appeared in your bank account right now? Would you spend all ten? Most would, myself included, and without even realizing it. We can easily mismanage our money if we have a surplus of it or even just make a ton at once. If it appears so fast it may seem like money will come in forever.

And unlike an Author or a Movie Star, that’s not true. After these guys snap a leg or retire from age there’s nothing. They can’t even get a job at ESPN unless you’re lucky. Those commercials and endorsements? Gone! A movie star can get roles often and can work a lot longer people, work into their eighties. A football player will be lucky with ten good years. The common belief that cash cows are meat and no one cares for them can never be any truer than in sports. And if you are a "hero" you may never have to pick up the tab at a bar again but, if you're going to be broke in ten years after retirement, chances are you won’t even be recognized from that has-been look.

And if it couldn't be worse after you leave the game you played passionately for your entire life, you can’t go to camp, you can’t play. If the biggest hobby or whatever job you have that you love to do, and you did it for years of preparation, and are suddenly kicked out I don’t know can you say DEPRESSION? Farve is a unfortunate example of this I don’t think life matters outside football for that man and just because of this the entire country hates him unless you’re in Minnesota.

Not even for Minnesota, there still mad about that interception and, that brings up my next point for this unforgiving society we live in. If you make one stupid comment like Wade made earlier you’re tarnished FOREVER. No matter what you do, people won’t forget. Take Michael Jordan, anytime you get in a conversation about him some moron has to go off and say "HAHA remember when he tried to go into baseball, what a tool!" Unfortunately this goes to all walks of life Sports, Politics, Movies you name it we never forgive anyone for anything. MJ has been dead for a year and if you go to one of his music videos on the internet that has comments you'll still hear "PEDOPHILE" even to a dead man.

Our society is just cold hearted wolves who bite your ankles at the one second you slip.

So, the next time you think of “Wow, I wish I was a sports hero”. Or the next time you force your kid to go beyond the high school jock by not showing him the outside world other than a couple of weight sets, just remember what you’re signing up for?