Spring is in the air. The Madness of March has come to an end; MLB is back on the diamond for another extremely long season; and the NFL is on the clock to pick the next round of elite athletes. For the past few months, the top College Football players who declared for the NFL draft have spent their days in training camps, at the NFL combine, and at their school’s pro days; all with the hope of impressing the NFL scouts and increasing their personal draft stock. These months are on top of the past 3-5 years these athletes have spent on a college campus trying to gain the respect of the public. To be selected in the NFL Player Draft means you are the cream of the crop in the College Football world. For the most part, college football players have a tendency of spending more time focusing on football than on their studies. Many athletes believe that if they do well on the field, they will never have to worry about sitting behind a desk from 9-5. Why would a NFL player need to know what ROI means? They make millions of dollars; they can just pay someone to handle their finances, right? Wrong.
A common misconception is that NFL players bring in multi-million dollars each year so it really doesn’t matter if they have a proper education or not. What many people do not know is that the average NFL career lasts about 3 ½ years and the median NFL salary is around $770,000. On top of that, close to 80% of NFL players are near bankruptcy within 2 years after retiring. It’s tough to fathom that these men blow through their 6-8 figure paychecks in such a short amount of time but that’s the reality of this game called life. The odds are stacked against these millionaires once they are out of the league; and part of that is without a doubt due to their lack of education.
Let me help break this down for you. The median NFL salary is $770,000/year in gross income. Now let’s factor in the federal tax deductions, the cost of living, agent pay, luxurious expenses (i.e. Range Rovers, extravagant homes, excessive vacations), family, etc. and you wind up with a number much lower than the gross $770,000/year. Since the average career length is just over 3 years, that luxurious lifestyle can be very short lived. Of course this is not the case for every NFL star, but the close to 80% bankruptcy within 2 years of retiring rate is the harsh reality.
Now what about those college football players that don’t make it to the NFL? In case you were unaware, in 2010 there were roughly 15,000 Division I College Football Players. Out of the 15,000, only 254 of them will be drafted in the 2011 NFL Player Draft, which means about 98% of the athletes that you rooted for or against will not have the opportunity to make a living off of their skills at the next level. This 98% had to endure the same pressure that the drafted athletes had to face on the football field, yet they will have to enter the “real-world” work force without a multi-million dollar contract. If all of these athletes energy was spent on their sport, you have to begin to question if this 98% will be prepared for the real world compared to their non-athlete classmates.
To make things clear, I do not blame the student athletes for their lack of energy on their education path. I attended a football university and was enrolled in classes with some football players. Speaking from my personal college experience, if there were a significant number of football players in a class of mine, the class was typically an easy “A”. Of course that was not the case for every class that I took but generally speaking, it was true. Do I blame the students for taking the easy “A” courses? Absolutely not (I personally loved getting an easy “A”). These athletes choose their classes through their academic advisors. So what is the reason behind placing athletes in the “easy classes”? A number of factors could play into this decision but one would have to believe that the primary factor is the revenue generation from the athletic programs. For example, in 2010 the University of Texas Football Program brought in an estimated $94 million in revenue. Even though the football players do not reap the fiscal benefits of the revenue, the pressure is on these student athletes to do the best that they can while the university hopes to grow the revenue stream. If college football players spent as much time focusing on their studies as they spend on the field, I truly believe that the success rate of college football and NFL players after hanging up their cleats would be much higher.
-Taylor Gaspar
Host of Taylor TV | OrangeBloods.com
Recently, my daily life has undergone a massive change. I had been employed by a company for a number of years; had obtained knowledge and experience in every department of the company; and truly believed that my knowledge and more importantly my talent had placed my job in a secure position. I can think of 100+ times where I was one of the first people to arrive in the office and one of the last to leave. Am I a workaholic? Not really. I just truly cared about my company and would do everything possible to make our product stand out amongst the competition. Little did I know that upper management just looked at me as a number, rather than an asset or even a talent.
Due to the current economic crisis, I fell into the average 10% of Americans who have lost their jobs and this loss completely blind-sided me. For the past week, I have had a lot of spare time on my hands to really analyze my situation and think about what I want to achieve with my talent that God has blessed me with. Along with this examination period, I have also had the chance to do things that I haven’t really been able to fit in my schedule for the last 2 ½ years. These include: working out (thank goodness for that), researching jobs, reading, and even watching pointless TV shows. Those shows have really got me thinking about the idea of talent.
As I sat at home watching “hit shows”, I started to wonder what today’s culture considers as talent. According to Meriam-Webster’s Dictionary, talent can be defined as “the natural endowments of a person; a special often athletic, creative, or artistic aptitude.” Growing up, I considered the people who appeared on TV as relatively talented individuals. Obviously, the idea that you are talented if you appear on television became ancient upon the arrival of “Reality TV.” If you flip through the channels, there’s a good possibility that you will come across a show featuring uneducated East Coast individuals who’s social lives revolve around alcohol and partying; a female who’s “fame” came from the release of a private x-rated tape; or even a show about teenaged mothers. Does it really take talent to have cameras intrude on your daily life and expose your personal issues and even addictions? Are teenagers talented for getting pregnant? Does dating someone 60 years older than you make you a talented person? Call me old fashioned, but these TV “stars” are seriously lacking talent.
I have always been one to believe that talent leads to success. Whether your talent comes from sports, the classroom, acting, singing, public speaking, etc. talented people always seemed to have endless possibilities in their lives. But in 21st Century terms, you can be very successful without having an ounce of talent. The question I leave with is at what point did the line between talented and “train wreck” become so distorted?
To all the Texas fans who are still spending their time analyzing the 2010 Texas sports season, including a loss to Alabama in Pasadena, the complete breakdown of the basketball team after being ranked number one in January, a loss to LSU in the college world series championship game, and possibly the worst football season in school history, its time to get your minds out of the gutter.
Longhorn fans have much to look forward to in 2011 and well beyond.
Starting with the AP 12th ranked Texas basketball team. The Longhorns have already exceeded many fans expectations. Rick Barnes’ team started the season with a strong performance in the 2K Sports Classic, where the Longhorns knocked out favored Illinois in the semifinals and nearly beat No. 4 Pittsburg in the championship game. After dropping their second loss of the season to USC, Texas responded by recording impressive road victories at North Carolina and Michigan State.
Sophomore forward/guard, Jordan Hamilton, has transformed his game from a year ago and leads the Longhorns with 19.5 points per game and 7.3 rebounds a game while shooting .423 from behind the arc. While senior Gary Johnson provides steady support, the arrival of McDonald’s All-Americans Cory Joseph and Tristan Thompson from Findlay Prep in Nevada give the Longhorns a chance to be great.
Forward/Center, Tristan Thompson, is averaging over 11 points and 8 rebounds per game, close to a double-double, over the first 12 games of his career, with many of his best games coming against the toughest teams on the schedule. The 6-8 freshman has a sweet left hand and a great inside game. Thompson also gives the Longhorns a shoot blocking defensive presence, who can deny opponents the lane, averaging 2 blocks per game.
Point Guard, Corey Joseph, who played with Tristan Thompson in high school, leads the team in assists and is third in scoring with 11.6 points per game. Joseph has averaged close to 20 points over the last four games including a 21 point performance against North Carolina.
Rick Barnes’ team is not without depth. Senior guard, Dogus Balbay, is one of the premier on ball defenders in college basketball and currently maintains a 2 to 1 Assist to turnover ratio. Sophomore guard, J’Covan Brown, gives the Longhorns instant offense off the bench while Junior forward, Alexis Wangmene, and Senior Center, Matt Hill, provide strength in the lane.
In 2011, the Longhorn Basketball team will play a very difficult regular season schedule including games against #4 Connecticut, #3 Kansas, and host of talented Big 12 teams. These opportunities to pad the Longhorn tournament resume gives the team a very high ceiling when it comes to seeding for the NCAA tournament in March. Rick Barnes’ team will be a very tough outcome tournament time.
The future of Texas basketball is bright as well. Rick Barnes recently signed an excellent 2011 recruiting class with four players in the Rivals150 including class headliner Myck Kabongo, a five star guard from Findlay Prep.
Stop looking back at 2010, and start looking forward to 2011.
Sports. From soccer (can’t remember the league name because I didn’t last long) to Pop Warner to PYBA (for you locals that’s the Pflugerville Youth Basketball Association) to Balcones Little League to Westview Middle School athletics to AAU summer track & field with the Road Runners to Pflugerville Connally High School varsity teams to eventually the University of Texas at Austin football team; sports has been all I’ve known.
Before he became my best friend, Torre Doty was just one of my high school basketball teammates. We didn’t talk much. Just practiced against one another. One day in practice he and I were getting after each other pretty good in a low post drill and he elbowed me is the jaw. Long story short, we almost came to blows over it and before you know it we’ve been best friends ever since.
Before she became my girlfriend, before she became my fiancée, before she became my wife, she was just a fellow athlete named Marshevet Hooker who was rehabbing an injury in the UT training room, just like me. Fast-forward seven years from the moment when we first met and we recently just celebrated our first wedding anniversary.
Sports have helped me form bonds that I never thought possible. I grew up playing little league baseball and eventually high school football with Stanford Routt, who is now in his sixth season with the Oakland Raiders. My wife is an Olympian and while traveling with her I’ve personally witnessed every single world record that Usain Bolt has set. I’ve spent time with Jackie Joyner-Kersee, Tyson Gay, Carl Lewis, Gail Devers and any other number of track and field legends.
I could go on and on and on about all the people I’ve met through my experiences in the sports world. I could tell you about meeting a big headed kid from Tyler who went on to be my roommate and one of the best men in my wedding. His name is Matthew Melton. I could tell you about meeting this crazy white boy from Colorado on a recruiting visit that used some of the most colorful language I’d ever heard in my life. We both ended up signing to the same recruiting class. His name is Kasey Studdard and if the 2010 version of the Texas Longhorns had even one person that was cut from the same cloth as Stud would be a LOT different. That’s a story for another day though…
I could tell you all about how the summer before my freshman year in college three guys from Houston and I used to workout with Mad Dog, then go to Popeyes and devour a bunch of chicken before passing out at my mom and dad’s house in North Austin for the rest of the afternoon before heading to seven-on-seven practices in the evening. Their names are Albert Hardy, Selvin Young and some guy a lot of you now just call VY. I could tell you all about going to Red McCombs ranch every August or breakfast nights in the dining hall or swindling the hotel staff when we traveled to the team hotel into removing that piece that kept us from hooking up our XBOX in our room (Chris Ogbonnaya and I) on the road. I never really could beat him so I had to stop playing him. He had a knack for giving me the best fantasy football advice and even though he’s in the NFL now, if I get stuck, I still text him to find out who to start.
I could tell you about this smart ass named Drew Kelson that I can’t stand (not really), argue with for the sake of arguing but have the utmost respect for and would do anything he asked of me. I could even tell you about a guy that showed up at my apartment one afternoon the summer before his freshman year of college to play video games that was built like a wide receiver, lived in the weight room for a few years and transformed himself into a first round linebacker/defensive end. We all just call him Rak. Or a kid from Port Arthur I hosted on his official visit that we took to Bennigan’s because we couldn’t figure out where else to get something to eat late one night. Luckily he didn’t mind and still signed with his. His name is Jamaal Charles.
I have TONS of these stories about all the people I’ve met, all the relationships I’ve formed and all the experiences I’ve had because of sports. If that’s all I ever talk about on my blog I don’t think I’d have enough web space to detail it with any just due. Hell, almost ten years ago I met Ketch when I was just a junior in high school and this site was called The-University.com (if I’m not mistaken). He and I still stay in touch to this day. Thank him for this blog if you enjoy it and blame him if you don’t.
I’m a River Oaks Elementary Road Runner. I’m a Westview Middle School Wildcat. I’m a Pflugerville Connally Cougar. I’m a University of Texas Longhorn (and an Orangeblood). I probably shouldn’t remember each of those mascots and if it weren’t for something in sports that happened at each stop along the road that helped to shape me along the way, I don’t think I would remember. Sure there are plenty of other things important in life. Sports aren’t the ONLY thing that has made me who I am. That being said, I’d be hard pressed to find too many things that have done more for me than sports have. Who cares? I’m not ashamed to admit it. Sports aren’t just a segment of my life. For me it has been, still is and always will be a way of life for me.
