When cheers fade, fortunes often follow

By David Wethe
Knight Ridder News Service

FORT WORTH, Texas — When a pro football player hangs up his helmet for the last time, he quickly finds out that even a career that included a trip to the Super Bowl doesn't guarantee financial security for life.

The fame, the fortune and the agent who handles that fortune often vanish, leaving a player without a career plan for the rest of his life.

Some former players say they didn't even know how to manage their money.

That's why the Dallas Cowboys teamed up with the U.S. Small Business Administration to help turn monsters of the gridiron into corporate warriors.

Former Dallas Cowboys defensive tackle Hurvin McCormack, who played in the 1996 Super Bowl, said he wishes he had learned more about business during the six years he played pro football. Instead, McCormack said, he relied on his agent to handle his finances.

"You get comfortable under that umbrella, and you avoid searching for other options out there," he said.

When McCormack's career ended — at age 28 — he lost his public identity and his income.

He asked for help from the Cowboys, the team for which he played for five years before capping his career in Cleveland. The Cowboys' player development department helped McCormack grab an internship at a subsidiary of Staubach Co., owned by former Cowboys quarterback Roger Staubach.

Although he landed on his feet — McCormack has formed an investment company in Dallas — he said he wasn't prepared for being unemployed, with no job prospects, before age 30.

"In this business, you're taught that you're invincible," said McCormack, who said it was tough when offers to play dried up in 2000.

"That's a mentality that you have to have to be successful, but that can be your greatest downfall because you're not."

That mentality is also the biggest barrier to getting athletes to participate in business-training programs, said Preston Pearson, a former Cowboys running back who first brokered a meeting between the SBDC and the Cowboys.

Pearson went to the SBDC for advice on how to sell a new home-office product he invented called the Kord Keeper. Pearson said he wished that he had access to a place like the SBDC when he was playing ball. The SBDC is a national network of training centers that receives about 45 percent of its money from the SBA.

In the four years since that first meeting at Valley Ranch, Jim Berish, director of technology at the SBDC in Dallas, has hatched the Mini-MBA program.

The seven-part seminar is designed to teach football players about such key issues as franchising dangers, international trade, loan preparation and intellectual property. The program is paid for by the team and is free to players.

Berish has signed up three other NFL teams to take part in his pilot program, but player attendance has yet to take off, he said.

That's partly because of the work ethic of coaches such as Bill Parcells and the limited time players have to work on personal business ventures, Berish said.

But Pearson also said players are more willing to participate in a business-training program if another player encourages it.

Michael Kiselak, a former Cowboys center, has capitalized on that by starting a program to help athletes move from pro sports to the business world. Eight months ago, he set up the for-profit Sports Business Network, a Dallas-based organization that allows players to network with business executives at monthly, invitation-only events at various locations around the Metroplex.

The Sports Professionals Foundation, a Dallas-based nonprofit, is also trying to help athletes transition into new careers.

Troupe said he sent out invitations to every active player in the league and has received about 75 responses.

"The event is designed to bring players all across the league together with the primary purpose of business networking to take advantage of the corporate presence at the Super Bowl," he said.

Although salaries have risen in pro sports, McCormack scoffs at the notion that every player who made it to the NFL, even for a short time, hit the financial jackpot and can coast for the rest of their lives. Not everyone gets the big bucks, and careers can end as quickly as they began.

"That is the absolute worst stereotype out there," McCormack said.

"The athletes have to get that out of their heads, too."