Financial Hardships for former pros
 

Here is something I absolutely did not know until I read it during lunch yesterday. From the latest issue of the San Diego Reader:

Seventy-eight percent of former NFL players after two years of retirement have significant debt or are facing bankruptcy. Sixty percent of NBA players, five years into retirement, are broke. Joblessness and ongoing medical bills accelerate debt. One near-certain consequence is divorce. Most estimates put the divorce rate for ex-athletes at between 60 and 80 percent.

They, like every one of us, has the freedom to make poor decisions, to spend unwisely, to fail, and to experience the consequences of those actions.

SHhhhhh, or we'll have another bailout. There are some large retirees out there, who may be too big to fail.

Yeah, but according to those statistics, they seem to be failing and experiencing the consequences at a much higher rate than the rest of us. Wait, let me qualify that. The rest of us who fall into the legal resident category.

Are you saying that the majority of players are here illegally??????? Who would have known!

If anything I would blame a higher failure rate on the school systems that pushed sports players through school and handed out grades that would keep them playing and winning for the school without actually teaching them anything. Then instead of learning what they need to know, they grab assed through life like the party would never end.