Image by americanistadechiapas via Flickr
Athletes are generally the types of people who live most of their lives in the moment. This tends to lead them into serious problems off the field or court like drug abuse, heavy debts and all kinds of crimes. Fortunately for them, there are ways to help these athletes when their careers end, and even while they’re still in their primes and feeling invulnerable.
When the crowds have stopped cheering and the stadiums have cleared out, an athlete needs to get beyond the moment and enter a whole new phase of life. For this period of their lives, athletes need a lot more than just athletic prowess to get them through this entirely new kind of game they have to play. While it’s easy to look at an athlete making several million dollars today and consider asking them to cry you a river, this isn’t all thornless roses and parades.
A lot of these athletes have no skills other than the ones their sports taught them. They may be bad at reading people who aren’t fans, have little experience dealing with their equals except in competition, and may barely be able to read and write. Often an athlete’s career picks up in middle school, and from then on nobody cares about anything but their abilities on the field. This is the game of what comes after. When a person makes millions of dollars by thirty, how much of it will they have at forty? Considering 40 isn’t even middle aged anymore, this presents a serious problem for the future.
