My Dream Life in NFL...Accounting
My Dream Life in NFL...Accounting
Jason Gay goes to camp with NFL players to learn about finances and preparing for life after football
ENLARGE
PHOTO: ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT POLLACK
By
JASON GAY
Updated April 14, 2016 1:30 p.m. ET
7 COMMENTS
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
So there I was, in sun-kissed Florida, a surprise invite to an off-season camp featuring some of the elite players in the NFL. Just a few feet away, there was Julius Peppers, nine-time Pro Bowler for the Green Bay Packers—Julius Peppers!
This was going to be so cool. Me and Julius Peppers and a bunch of other NFL dudes, hanging out, listening to coaches, experts, some of them former pros, telling us war stories, getting super excited about, you know, the important stuff, the glamorous stuff, like…
Asset/liability mismatches.
Gross margin percentages.
Compound interest.
Bonds.
Mmmmm…bonds!
OK so it wasn’t NFL minicamp. It was NFL finance camp.
MORE FROM JASON GAY
(And it really was in Florida. In a first-floor ballroom at the Marriott. With snacks.)
The camp was hosted by NFL Player Engagement—the league’s branch dedicated to on and off-field lives of its players—with the help of TD Ameritrade and the University of Miami School of Business Administration. The idea behind it is pretty straightforward: make pro football players financially fit, especially midcareer and veteran players contemplating the road’s end. This year’s theme: building generational wealth.
“This week is about empowerment,” Charles Way, the former New York Giant and now vice president of the NFLPE. “This week is about influence. This week is about impact. I’m asking you to take advantage of it.”
Yes, we have all heard the horror stories about pro athletes being separated from their money—seven, eight, sometimes nine-figure earnings wiped out by bad purchases, bad allies, bad investments. Some of it is youth. Some of it is irresponsibility. A lot of it is human. If I were a No. 1 draft choice, I would be the guy who bought a Ferrari, and then a Ferrari for my Ferrari so it didn’t get lonely.
That’s not the way to do it, of course. Athletic careers can be perilously short, especially in a workplace like the NFL, with your lifetime earnings peaking in your 20s, and if you’re lucky, 30s. With players bombarded by team commitments and financial advisers eager to take their business, it’s easy for them to become disconnected from the day-to-day of their money. Reconnecting is what this camp, now in its second year, is for. “I actually got a new accountant and new financial adviser after last year’s program,” said Josh Martin, a linebacker for the New York Jets.
The mood in the ballroom was businesslike. A lot of players brought their spouses (one player, Chicago’s Antrel Rolle, would be represented by his mother). There was animated talk about diversification, rollovers, retirement, inflation, and what you should really ask a potential financial adviser (any tough question you want!). Charts were shown detailing how much a player needed to save to maintain financial comfort into their twilight. Luxury goods were pooh-poohed as extravagances—OK sometimes, but not as a habit.
The league is happy to show off the responsible side of player life, of course. Amid the cautionary tales of bankruptcies and careers cruelly shortened are indeed some savers as obsessive about budgeting as they are training. Last season, the Journal’s Kevin Clark detailed the frugal competition among the Washington Redskins, which included quarterback Kirk Cousins driving a dented van to practice.
Stephen Tulloch is another saver. A veteran linebacker who’s earned tens of millions and most recently played for Detroit, Tulloch told me he comparison shops for cars and took his time before buying his first house. He said his goal was “not just being rich for today but having money for my kids’ kids’ kids’ future.”
“It can go so fast if you don’t take care of it,” Tulloch said. “I try to embed it in the guys now: It’s not what you make, but what you save.”
ENLARGE
Pat Kerney speaks during the NFL’s Player Engagement Financial Camp PHOTO: NFL
The camp’s founder is Pat Kerney, the 2007 NFC Defensive Player of the Year, who went on to business school at Columbia, worked in the league’s benefit office, and is now a director for National Fire & Casualty Investments. Kerney said that as a rookie with Atlanta, the veteran Lester Archambeau, a Stanford graduate, pulled him aside and handed him a copy of “The Millionaire Next Door,” Thomas Stanley and William Danko’s treatise on building wealth. “When a guy like that walks by and says, ‘Hey rook—read this,’ you read it,” Kerney told me. (Today, he enjoys reading Warren Buffett’s letters to investors.)
Kerney retired in 2010 after an 11-year career. He’s not so far removed from football and the casual lingua franca of playing life, and his keynote could have been delivered at midfield in a practice. He talked about the differences in cost of living in NFL towns (Charlotte’s a lot less expensive than Seattle; Denver’s pricier than Dallas) and the common mistakes (max out that 401(k), people!). He urged players to view money as “future freedom”—not just for themselves, but generations.
With the NFL continuing to climb, Kerney said his goal was to “change the mind-set from funding [kids’] college educations to, ‘How do I someday become a family office, because I am [Houston star] J.J. Watt and I just grossed $200 million before my 30th birthday.’”
Not every NFL attendee had a mega-contract or was a mogul-in-training, however. Josh Martin, the Jets linebacker, played for four clubs last year—Kansas City to Tampa to Indianapolis to New York in the space of three months.
“I bounced around,” he said. “I have to think about life beyond football. Reality hits you quick, so you have to maximize your money.”
That’s not NFL talk. That’s wise advice for anyone. By now I’ve accepted I’m never going to win a Super Bowl. But I can probably do something about compound interest.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
My Dream Life in NFL...Accounting
Jason Gay goes to camp with NFL players to learn about finances and preparing for life after football
PHOTO: ILLUSTRATION: SCOTT POLLACK
By
JASON GAY
Updated April 14, 2016 1:30 p.m. ET
7 COMMENTS
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
So there I was, in sun-kissed Florida, a surprise invite to an off-season camp featuring some of the elite players in the NFL. Just a few feet away, there was Julius Peppers, nine-time Pro Bowler for the Green Bay Packers—Julius Peppers!
This was going to be so cool. Me and Julius Peppers and a bunch of other NFL dudes, hanging out, listening to coaches, experts, some of them former pros, telling us war stories, getting super excited about, you know, the important stuff, the glamorous stuff, like…
Asset/liability mismatches.
Gross margin percentages.
Compound interest.
Bonds.
Mmmmm…bonds!
OK so it wasn’t NFL minicamp. It was NFL finance camp.
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(And it really was in Florida. In a first-floor ballroom at the Marriott. With snacks.)
The camp was hosted by NFL Player Engagement—the league’s branch dedicated to on and off-field lives of its players—with the help of TD Ameritrade and the University of Miami School of Business Administration. The idea behind it is pretty straightforward: make pro football players financially fit, especially midcareer and veteran players contemplating the road’s end. This year’s theme: building generational wealth.
“This week is about empowerment,” Charles Way, the former New York Giant and now vice president of the NFLPE. “This week is about influence. This week is about impact. I’m asking you to take advantage of it.”
Yes, we have all heard the horror stories about pro athletes being separated from their money—seven, eight, sometimes nine-figure earnings wiped out by bad purchases, bad allies, bad investments. Some of it is youth. Some of it is irresponsibility. A lot of it is human. If I were a No. 1 draft choice, I would be the guy who bought a Ferrari, and then a Ferrari for my Ferrari so it didn’t get lonely.
That’s not the way to do it, of course. Athletic careers can be perilously short, especially in a workplace like the NFL, with your lifetime earnings peaking in your 20s, and if you’re lucky, 30s. With players bombarded by team commitments and financial advisers eager to take their business, it’s easy for them to become disconnected from the day-to-day of their money. Reconnecting is what this camp, now in its second year, is for. “I actually got a new accountant and new financial adviser after last year’s program,” said Josh Martin, a linebacker for the New York Jets.
The mood in the ballroom was businesslike. A lot of players brought their spouses (one player, Chicago’s Antrel Rolle, would be represented by his mother). There was animated talk about diversification, rollovers, retirement, inflation, and what you should really ask a potential financial adviser (any tough question you want!). Charts were shown detailing how much a player needed to save to maintain financial comfort into their twilight. Luxury goods were pooh-poohed as extravagances—OK sometimes, but not as a habit.
The league is happy to show off the responsible side of player life, of course. Amid the cautionary tales of bankruptcies and careers cruelly shortened are indeed some savers as obsessive about budgeting as they are training. Last season, the Journal’s Kevin Clark detailed the frugal competition among the Washington Redskins, which included quarterback Kirk Cousins driving a dented van to practice.
Stephen Tulloch is another saver. A veteran linebacker who’s earned tens of millions and most recently played for Detroit, Tulloch told me he comparison shops for cars and took his time before buying his first house. He said his goal was “not just being rich for today but having money for my kids’ kids’ kids’ future.”
“It can go so fast if you don’t take care of it,” Tulloch said. “I try to embed it in the guys now: It’s not what you make, but what you save.”
Pat Kerney speaks during the NFL’s Player Engagement Financial Camp PHOTO: NFL
The camp’s founder is Pat Kerney, the 2007 NFC Defensive Player of the Year, who went on to business school at Columbia, worked in the league’s benefit office, and is now a director for National Fire & Casualty Investments. Kerney said that as a rookie with Atlanta, the veteran Lester Archambeau, a Stanford graduate, pulled him aside and handed him a copy of “The Millionaire Next Door,” Thomas Stanley and William Danko’s treatise on building wealth. “When a guy like that walks by and says, ‘Hey rook—read this,’ you read it,” Kerney told me. (Today, he enjoys reading Warren Buffett’s letters to investors.)
Kerney retired in 2010 after an 11-year career. He’s not so far removed from football and the casual lingua franca of playing life, and his keynote could have been delivered at midfield in a practice. He talked about the differences in cost of living in NFL towns (Charlotte’s a lot less expensive than Seattle; Denver’s pricier than Dallas) and the common mistakes (max out that 401(k), people!). He urged players to view money as “future freedom”—not just for themselves, but generations.
With the NFL continuing to climb, Kerney said his goal was to “change the mind-set from funding [kids’] college educations to, ‘How do I someday become a family office, because I am [Houston star] J.J. Watt and I just grossed $200 million before my 30th birthday.’”
Not every NFL attendee had a mega-contract or was a mogul-in-training, however. Josh Martin, the Jets linebacker, played for four clubs last year—Kansas City to Tampa to Indianapolis to New York in the space of three months.
“I bounced around,” he said. “I have to think about life beyond football. Reality hits you quick, so you have to maximize your money.”
That’s not NFL talk. That’s wise advice for anyone. By now I’ve accepted I’m never going to win a Super Bowl. But I can probably do something about compound interest.
Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com
