Once the cheering stops: The life of a retired pro-athlete

A majority of the time the life of a retired athlete is not pretty at all it usually this struggle of running out of money and finding a job that they can actually make a living with the skills they have outside of the playing field.  Athletes have a very difficult time trying to find a job when they leave the league because most of the time they haven't made any connections during their sports career that could set them up with an actual career.  They also see a lot of difficulty in being able to save money during their career with fraudulent investments that actually hurt them in the long then actually setting them up with a stable financial future.  Like quoted in the ESPN 30-for-30 the men often talked about the constant spending on cars and luxury items that they didn't really need and eventually it hurt them.

These men also face a lot of problems when they transfer from playing into a retired life because they don't have any real world work experience that is actually valued in the workforce or business world. Like the New York Times article Eric Knott had talked about how people saw baseball on his resume and they though of it as a career gap and that he didn't have any experience.  Most of the time this is the kinda thing that the athletes face of not having any help in their transition to a whole new life.  A lot of this comes from no successful organizations or incentives that come from the respective sports leagues foe the players.  Although, this maybe seems to be changing with a couple business and entrepreneurial classes former players can take that was brought up in the New York Times article, there is still a big gap that players are trying to make it through.

Furthermore, I think the athletes are struggling so much because some of them only see a few years of college, if any, depending on the sport, which in turn causes them to have no real world skills that are applicable in the business world.  Also, I think there needs to be a lot more help coming from the leagues themselves.  Even relating to the previous sports pages post, maybe Roger Goodell could focus a little less on spending millions of dollars on a foreign football team or more foreign football games and focus more on the retired players who sacrifices themselves for the leagues that are now having a hard time raise their families because of their financial troubles.  This side of sport cultures I think is considered the dark side.  This is the side of sports that people 'like to forget' because people want to see professional sports and athletes as these superhuman people who give us this entertainment and live lavish fantastic lives.  However, that isn't the case these athletes maybe do live these lavish lives for a few years but there comes a point where they cannot play anymore and when that happens they are thrown into a world of unfamiliarity and a no-income lifestyle.  This harsh reality of retired athletes, beyond the medical issues of playing the game, is a dark side to sports and US sport culture that will never truly be better and perfect, but it can be improved with the right programs and help from the corresponding sport leagues and major actors within those leagues.

I have thought about this and a lot of what I feel was expressed in talking about the the dark side of retired athletes.  Retired athletes need more help and more programs that can set them up for their future.  Another harsh reality is that the American people would like to believe that every athlete would be as well off as Michael Jordan with his enormous shoe contract that has made him more money since he's retired than ever did when he was still in the league.  So many people before have compared sport to war and athletes to soldiers and in all honesty this connection of the players retiring and finding a job and soldier coming back from war trying to find a job might be the closest one yet.  Many soldiers have gone to serve before college or served as their college and service is much appreciated but anther harsh reality is that there are so many veterans that struggle everyday when they come back from war.  This all sounds to similar to athletes, maybe there is a program that can help both.