Is There Life After Football? Read Free

research, and he is presently a member of the National Football League Player Engagement Advisory Board.
    In a sense, Koonce is the consummate “participant observer”—a researcher who has been embedded in his research subject most of hislife. He’s an authentic insider who has seen and done it all. Koonce’s observations and insights inform the analysis throughout the book. In addition, the other authors (Jim Holstein and Rick Jones, both sociologists at Marquette) spent dozens of hours interviewing Koonce, conducting in-depth life history interviews. These interview data also appear throughout the book, with Koonce’s stock of experiential knowledge of football, the NFL, and retirement supplying the empirical bedrock for this study. In addition, the book draws upon dozens of formal, in-depth life history interviews as well as many more informal interviews conducted with former NFL players—players with experience on a variety of teams, from different eras, playing different positions, from diverse social, economic, and racial backgrounds, and experiencing varying degrees of success and financial reward in the NFL. Several other academic studies of NFL players, former players, and their families also provide revealing first-hand data. Finally, the book draws on narratives and interviews on retirement-related issues from a wide variety of media sources, citing hundreds of players. 12
    The sports and entertainment media provide plenty of sensationalized, sweeping generalizations and judgmental conclusions about life after football. An anecdote here and there is usually deemed sufficient to warrant the claims. But an empirically narrow, predetermined focus often distorts players’ lived realities. It’s likely to ignore complexity and discount the mundane. Life after football is as complex and variegated as it is in any other segment of society. It’s just lived in a spotlight, or under a microscope, but there’s more to discover if we recognize and honor the complexity, nuance, and paradoxes of ex-players’ lives that defy easy characterization. 13
    Recently, head injuries have been the big story. Prior to that, money dominated the discussion, with reports of monumental TV deals and collective bargaining agreements juxtaposed with lurid tales of profligate spending and bankruptcy. Crime, domestic violence, social relationships, sexuality, isolation, and addiction claimed the sidebars. But none of these issues emerges in a vacuum. Nor do they develop in stereotypic lockstepwith media images. Like everyone else in 21st-century America, former NFL players live at the complicated intersection of race, social class, gender, and the economy. Everyone faces the mundane challenges of getting by from day to day in a world of jobs, bills, ailments, and relationships. Life after football is no different. If the challenges are distinctive, it’s due in large part to the radical social changes that players encounter when they exit the game. When NFL players leave football, they encounter a version of culture shock. They aren’t just retiring from a job or a career. They’re leaving a way of life, entering a world that is foreign to them. They know the language—sort of—but they speak a distinctive dialect. They’ve seen the sights from afar, but they’re no longer tourists or disinterested onlookers. Now they live in the neighborhood. The world after football for some players is so different from what they’ve experienced for their entire adult lives that it leaves them disoriented.
    NFL players are tough, talented, and well-compensated. Their lives revolve around competition and commitment. Violence and injury lurk around every corner. Teamwork, loyalty, and camaraderie are transcendent themes, juxtaposed with individual glory and respect. Beyond question, the NFL is a
man’s
world, where masculine pride and character are constantly challenged. Even