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

Retired athletes, regardless of their sport, have difficulty assimilating to the world of being a "normal person" when the fans stop noticing and the checks stop being written.  This is a difficult transition that most are not prepared for and it can happen for many reasons. Losing something as quickly as earning it is a whirlwind process that people are devastatingly effected by. This is the case far too often with athletes and the money they earn, the friends they have, and the status they hold in society. 

           The money is lost so easily because many of them don't know how to handle it. Poor investments due to false pitches, having to have bigger and better than other players, family coming into their lives who were not there for the first 20ish years are all factors of how this money goes so quickly, and this is the first time they may have ever even gotten a paycheck. This is the basis on which they learn to handle money, and that leads to retired athletes both upset for not knowing in the first place, but also gives them a foundation of how to handle money in the future. Unfortunately, future funding is not what they're looking forward to when they get drafted and the whole system is a paradox. Gary Penn said this in the article about Olympic athletes stating, "My biggest fear is that they only focus on the Olympics goals and don't think about what comes after. When they do, it's too late." There is generally no clarity in the mindset of a young player other than to be the best athlete they can be, this takes focus away from being the best person they can be, and is a large factor of broke retirees.

The emotional toll that this takes on athletes is enough to drive some to depression. This is mostly due to the fact that when others stop seeing them as having a cash value, the relationships they thought they had end up crumbling. Friends, financial advisers, spouses, and even parents, stop giving attention to these athletes in a lot of cases. This hugely affects people's psyche and can cause a downward spiral when players have no job and no one to love them when they're coming down from this high of holding superstar status, when they need it most.
Unlike the world of Hollywood where actors and actresses may be remembered decades beyond their time, major sports players can be forgotten even before the next season starts. Going from having fans that would pay hundreds or thousands for the opportunity to meet you, to being addressed as, "Hey you were that one guy," gives players a complex of no longer being significant to anyone's lives.

I'd never even thought about the issues that a lot of players end up facing before this. After reading these articles and viewing the documentary it is easier to see how and why athletes end up losing all of their money. I never took into consideration the masses of people that would clog an athlete's mindset, like family coming out of the woodwork and people looking at the athletes as dollar signs. Before going into this assignment I would get sick about the amount of athletes that go pro only to end up broke, partially because I am one of those students paying for their degree through loans and scholarships, and it seems like a huge waste of money that could be spent so much more beneficially in this world. I've never been in the military but I do have people close to me that have and the comparison made of literally being taken out of one mindset of being an all star one day and being dropped into a stay-at-home-body the next, I can imagine would be similar. I've been told, and I'm sure people just know, that it's the same for our troops. They're fighting to stay alive one day, and then expected to come home and have a mentality that everything is fine on the next. There's no way to transition from one to the next without preparing people for how difficult it will be.

Costas, Bob. After Olympic Athletes Retire, What's next for Them? Digital image. NBC News. Associated Press, 25 Sept. 2012. Web.

London Calling: The Globalization of the NFL

Personally I think that the globalization of the NFL would draw away from it's identity of being "American." For starters, it's the National Football League, so there's a minor name change off the bat to the International football league. While we know it was not originally an American sport, the concept of what it has become is a huge American enterprise that runs most of what american sport is about. The drafting, the fantasy teams, the travel to see "your" team, everything included is a lifestyle for American football lovers and I don't think that that attitude could easily be emulated elsewhere. I think that identifying with a team would be difficult too for Londoner's because they would be American teams that they would be rooting for. Like the article said, it would be possible to have teams centrally located in the east coast to keep the playing field slightly more fair with the time change, but even then American fans would not be able to keep up with the season as easily, nor would London fans be able to either when games would be played in America. While the article had some good arguments, I think that Barnwell's "positive" arguments only feed into American capitalism and what it takes to make more money. As if the NFL doesn't already make enough money to sustain itself and Africa if it wanted to, broadcasting a sport in another country would bring more airtime- live or prerecorded- to American households. That would increase revenue for everyone involved, which then would increase taxes as well. With this Atlantic team needing a place to stay and more market to keep players happy both locally and away, that means that our tax dollars go to yet another extravagant playing space that will likely fail after a few seasons of players being worn after only one or two seasons from the traveling. The option of letting draft picks for a London team have better or more incentives could only be enticing to so many players to want to continue a career in the league, unless they are American in their money loving ways, of course. Not only would sustaining players be a necessary factor to keep a team there, but maintaining good records as far as wins and losses would be necessary to keeping a team there as well. People would not commit to taking time and spending money from other things in ice to see a consistently losing team play, which would highly be the case because of the athletes' home lives. As it is, all we hear about in the public sphere are famous athletes with terrible track records in relationships, and those are people who stay in the US to play their sports. Imagine the effect on players that can't commit to one continent. I think that the psyche of the athlete is being neglected and looked at as robotic. As long as they are charged (there is money being thrown at them) then they will stay committed to the sport and maintain the tasks that they are assigned. 

Also, how many teams would this then turn into? If there were to be a successful team in London, who else might want a team that would also compete in this league? The farther East the teams being established, the greater the time distance between the west NFL teams in CA and the possible eastern NFL teams in Germany. This time difference would be impossible to account for, unlike the seemingly close, "Across the Pond," that is London. At some point, Europeans would claim the teams to themselves and the game would change drastically based on the culture, as we know that happens, and then the European's would want their own NFL, sending Americans packing with no "home" to go to. That would be due to the fact that team fans in America probably wouldn't stray from "their" teams over this time and would be playing, more than likely, a different variation to the game that got them there in the first place. 

I think that while it would be inclusive of America to move teams and players overseas, there are too many risk factors involved in relocating a game that centrally identifies with one country.

Barnwell, B. (2013, August) London calling. Grantland.

Sport, Society, and Me

When I was younger, my mother was not very interested in sports. She now claims, “Raiders by marriage, Niners by blood,” and the same geographical distinction applies to “her” baseball teams. That being said, I was not raised in a sport-oriented household. While my father has been a sports fan my entire life, it wasn’t until my step-father moved into our house that I became attuned to Monday Night Football, watching a game on Sundays, and most importantly, having a group setting to bar-b-que with to watch the ever important Super Bowl. I’ve had “Super Bowl Sunday” plans since the year of Janet Jackson’s nip “slip” and I think that has a large part to do with the fact that when my step-dad moved in, Football became part of life. I have not, until recently, been involved in the game. I used to tell people that I was bored by the game because I didn’t know enough about it to follow what was going on. I’ve always liked the experience of going to professional games, all sports included, and that would also be part of my lack of interest, that I was only interested in a sport when I was there experiencing the action with a crowd of people more invested than myself. I now know more about the rules of games and how the scoring system works and like sitting down to watch some games on TV, but I’m still not a stats person that would be able to tell you how my favorite team has been doing this season.
There have only been two times in my life when I became involved in physical activities that I would consider sports. The first was wakeboarding because you couldn’t really sweat much (and that was one of my biggest concerns in my younger years of PE); you were already wet from the water, and CrossFit and hiking experiences to participate in a Tough Mudder event. I am grateful that I picked up interest in the ways that I did. I am proud when I say that I can clean over half of my body weight and I think it’s an accomplishment to say that a girl who never even ran the mile in PE is able to pull herself up and maintain stability on a wakeboard.

I feel that I had a few limitations growing up that had to do with my disregard for sports. One, my mother never pushed me to partake in sports. She never pushed me to try or, even then further, commit to a sport. This, along with not being introduced to sports that I now like to partake in, were factors of my lack of concern or interest when I was younger. I think it’s unfortunate that only popular American sports are actively pushed in younger grades PE curriculum. I only remember being taught soccer, football, and baseball in my younger years and I wish that schools had more sports funding for the introduction of sports that are less pursued by kids, which wouldn’t be the case if more money was allocated to sports in elementary, middle, and high schools. I can only imagine that if there were more funding for sports, it would go to the teams and the players, not to enhancement of the PE program, but the sports that bring students into the schools.
This begs the question then, why was I so intrigued by the sports that I did choose? Not only because they were easily attainable for me, no prior experience or knowledge needed, but because sports athletes are looked at as a different, higher, subset of American Culture. Even if I didn’t pursue a career in these sports it was still some type of physical activity that I could say I was good at, rather than just being the odd one out in the room that doesn’t know anything about participating in physically demanding sports. 
In my life, I was the granddaughter that participated in drama through out high school. While my grandparents supported that and went to the two plays that I had leading roles in, they have flown to Florida multiple times to see my cousin, their grandson play football at Florida Atlantic University. This is his third college that he is playing for and it is looking hopeful that he will be drafted in the next NFL picks, or so I hear. It’s fantastic that sports can bring young athletes so far in life, however as the article states there are many problems within the sports world and society because of the competition and drive. I wonder what that has done for my cousin having been from school to school only because the first couldn’t get him the playing time or coverage that he deserved? I wonder if in any way that has negatively affected his GPA having transferred twice now? Like Eitzen presents to the reader, student athletes are a lot of the time, “athletes first and students second.”
Looking into sports more in this Eitzen reading, I am starting to see more and more of a comparison of sports and the government that rules our society. Yes, there are governing boards with rules and regulations. So what? There are still scandals beyond belief between players in their personal and sports-related lives. That’s not to say that athletes and politicians are the worst people, they just happen to (unfortunately) be given the spotlight most of their days and get very brief moments to themselves in life without the public masses invading their personal lives. I think the idea of sports, just as the idea of government, can be fantastic, but utopian for the public to think that sportsmanship is the goal and that games are made to be played fairly.

References:
Eitzen, D.S  (2006).  Fair and Foul: Beyond the Myths and Paradoxes of Sport (2^nd Ed.).  Oxford, Rowman & Littlefield: Chapter 1