Is There Life After Football? Read Free Page A

though players occupy the spotlight much of the time, they also occupy a private world, shielded, if not isolated, from the mundane world of everyday life around them. They live in a “fishbowl”—an arena where they are scrutinized, but also insulated from many of the routine demands of everyday life.
    When a player leaves the league, everything changes. It’s not just the money or the lifestyle. The codes and principles by which players live in the NFL bubble no longer apply. Players are no longer part of the locker room culture. Everything they’re used to is up for grabs. But old ways die hard; the NFL imprint is deep. How players adapt to radical post-career changes can be excruciatingly personal, even if they might seem avoidable, trivial, or absurd to outsiders. On top of that, former players are challenged daily to work things out at the intricate nexus of celebrity and oblivion.
    George Koonce’s personal story provides a point of departure for examining these changes. As informative as his accounts are, however, they aren’t definitive. Instead, his experience provides the narrative anchor for telling the broader range of players’ stories. Koonce faced his fair share of challenges and changes. He’s met with plenty of setbacks and successes. But his story isn’t everyone’s story. Sometimes it confirms broader patterns; sometimes it serves as instructive counterpoint.
    To grasp the range of challenges, we must carefully consider what life was like while players were still
in the game
, as well as the standards to which ex-players compare their post-NFL experience. Players’ lives both before the NFL and while they played serve as the backdrop for their lives after football. Understanding how players carve their niches within the NFL and embody the game’s culture helps us to appreciate how they make their peace with life after football.

APPENDIX 2
RETIREMENT BENEFITS
    Misapprehensions about player retirement benefits are rife—both among the general public and among players and former players themselves. This appendix briefly summarizes the benefits provided by the NFL, with special emphasis on limitations and qualifications for eligibility. We also note some controversial and contentious issues in this realm.
Financial Context
    Some financial context is necessary to place retirement benefits into proper perspective. The following synopsis, taken from the NFL Player Care study, outlines the general financial picture for players who are “vested”—that is, who have spent a minimum of three to five years in the NFL, depending on the era in which they played, and are thus eligible for the benefits package. 1
    Vested retirees have substantially higher incomes than men of similar ages in the general population. Younger NFL alumni report median total incomes of $85,000 (2008) and older alumni report a median of $93,400 (2008). As points of reference, the median total income for all U.S. men aged 30–49 was $55,000 and for all men 50 or older was $48,169. When NFL alumni are compared with U.S. men with some college experience (not necessarily four-year degrees), the income gaps are cut nearly in half. Still another picture emerges when we look at those at the lower end of the income ladder. Younger alumni report incomes below the poverty level at the same rate as the general population. These numbers are even more noteworthy when NFL veterans are compared with men of comparable education. NFL alumni are twice as likely to report income that is below the poverty level—8.4 percent versus 4.1 percent in the general population.Remember, these figures are based on alumni who had roughly average careers; they don’t include players with careers of three years or less.
    In terms of income sources, 49.2 percent of older alumni reported that they had annual incomes from earnings (median: $70,000), while 65.5 percent of younger players had earnings