Schools like to pretend their athletes are also students. But we were never given the impression that we should concentrate on the classroom
In my four years with Purdue’s football team, I tore ligaments, broke bones, lifted four times my weight a hundred times over, studied football more than my academics, rose before the sun, and stayed up long past its fall in the hope of making it to the NFL. I wasn’t the only one. Everyone on the roster – around 85 other young men – made the same sacrifices with the same hopes. As my tenure was coming to an end, it became obvious that fewer than 10% of us would get an invite to an NFL training camp, let alone an actual contract offer.
And even if you did get that contract, you were hardly set up for life. I was the highest-ranked prospect on our campus and one of the few players to be drafted by an NFL team … and my professional career last three years. I earned good money, but nowhere near enough to retire on – and I was one of the lucky few who got a chance to play professionally. For the players who don’t make it – and that’s the vast majority of them – there is hardly enough time, resources, or care to prepare them for a future beyond football.
