Your Money is Gone in 60 Seconds…

I watched an interesting documentary the other day about how a vast majority of professional athletes go broke within 5 years of retiring!... two years actually if you are from the NFL! The source of these statistics is a Sports Illustrated article that says 80% of pro athletes end up nearly penniless; numbers, if you can believe it, that often also include players whose career earnings are in the tens of millions and even in some cases over a hundred million – think Allen Iverson, Antoine Walker and the dog abuser Michael Vick for the latter. On the surface it seems ludicrous and unbelievable, but the numbers bare it out. If you were to analyze the phenomena a lion’s share of the fault certainly needs to be placed where it belongs at the feet of the over sized egos of the players and their utter lack of any financial responsibility, but are there other culprits too? Perhaps there is something to be said too about North American society and the way it perverts people’s minds about what showing success actually means.  Not to mention how “normal” people start acting when they are around those who all of a sudden have a LOT of money.

The Buying High

When you hear sometimes about people with shopping addictions, as you do when you don’t have that specific addiction..., you wonder what the hell? That said, shopping can be an addiction like any other. When you buy something it releases dopamine in your brain and you feel good. An issue is that like other drugs people try to chase that same high, of their first big purchase (perhaps a new car ) and end up continuously buying more and more extravagant things. The  most telling story in the documentary was of an NFL line man who when given news that he was being released from his pro team and was given $60 grand severance he took the money and bought the new Hummer that had just come out. Old habits die hard, and that was the last big ticket item he was ever able to afford. The pro athletes also are pitted against one another in a perverse game of keeping up with the Jones. In the case of the 7th man on the Miami Heat, it's probably not wise to go dollar for dollar with Dwayne Wade and Lebron Jame's spending habits... but miraculously many do. 


Can’t buy me love 

That once was a Beatles song, before they got a lot more esoteric, and lyric that has some truth, but does it totally. The pro athletes are faced with a slew of woman trying to get pregnant, and if they are lucky married, to them. If a woman can get a successful paternity suit they  have won the Super Bowl of groupies and will be the epitome of the stay at home mom… stay at home that is with $20,000 grand a month for living costs till the child is 18. The documentary even talked about a web site called www.balleralert.com where groupies can subscribe to web and phone alerts when pro athletes are out at clubs so they can get done up and down there themselves. Beyond the groupies, the pro athletes’ worst mistake, according to an agent in the documentary, is getting married at all- especially without a pre-nuptial agreement. With divorce rates for athletes running in 70 – 80% so often the athletes see their earnings, especially after their playing days, going to ex-wives and baby mommas. Shawn Kemp, an NBA star with the Seattle Supersonics in the 90's, sees much of his money go to his 9 children with 9 different woman. In many ways it seems a horrid trade off, getting rich playing a sport may hold that person away from the riches paid out from real love.

Bugs don’t just exist on plants

This summer I tried my hand at growing some herbs and vegetables in my bay windows. With plenty of light and a reasonably attentive human parent for them… what could go wrong, right? Well… I never calculated for random bugs attacking the plants at their most sensitive areas – the fruit trying to grow from them and their budding leaves. What I realized watching it was that where there is an excess of energy different organisms will try to feed off of that energy.

Hearing the stories of the pro athletes it would appear insects being attracted to a source of sustenance is not held just to the animal kingdom. Time and time again you hear about athletes being suckered in by shady business men offering can’t miss investments, financial advisors out right robbing them, and worse yet family and friends exercising guilt and whatever else they can to get money. Being near money has a perverse effect on a lot of people. Though money is a reified man made concept it exercises the same force on reality that objects, like the leaves of a plant do to insects, in nature.

 Whether it is being attracted in swarms to young seedlings or swarming to somebody with lots of money there are insects everywhere. This is an issue the athlete has fending off the advances of those desirous of them… as the Notorious B.I.G. once said: “Mo Money, Mo Problems.”