Hacker News Reader

Comment by kybernetyk | Hacker News Reader

Pro football players have to earn a life's salary in a few years before they get worn out. $2 million over 50+ years isn't really that much.

View on HN

And they often come out of it with long-term injuries that require ongoing, lifelong medical treatment, similar to boxers. Hence all of the recent discussion about concussions, though there are more factors than just that.

They have the opportunity to. But they don't have to. They have their whole life to continue to make their living, they don't turn to vegetables without any ability to work.

You mean it is impossible for them to work a regular job after retiring from the NFL? Keep in mind that NFL recruits from College, and (if you ignore the cases of cheating the system) most colleges have academic eligibility requirements. Therefore pretty much all pro football players also have a college degree (except the ones that get drafted before graduating -- I don't know what that statistic is).

Heck, if I could have gotten a couple million dollar head start in life by working on my hobby once a week, I'd take that even if I had to delay a regular career by a few years.

I believe pro football is a full time job hence occupies more than one day a week.

Sorry, that was sort of an inside joke. A guy at work told me a story of how his nephew wanted to be a garbage man when he grew up, since they only have to "work one day a week".

Except that you'd be betting that you're the exception:

"According to Sports Illustrated, 78% of NFL players are divorced, unemployed, or bankrupt two years after leaving the game, and MSNBC reports that one in four NFL players live paycheck to paycheck" [1].

Most athletes do not invest wisely, and often lack the experience to handle large sums of money [2]. Are you so sure that you'd be the exception?

[1] Slideshow warning: http://www.complex.com/sports/2012/04/six-reasons-why-pro-at...

[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/don-mcnay/like-lottery-winners...

I understand the statistics, I was just responding to "they have to earn a lifetimes salary". I was under the assumption that the reason for College sports eligibility requirements was so that athletes can have the ability to support themselves after their sports career is over. In fact, I've often run across people in various professions (such as the guy at the car dealership) who were former professional athletes.

I don't know the stats but I suspect that most of them don't have degrees. Many exhaust their college eligibility just "a few credits" shy of graduating.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com