Much Too Often, Millionaire Athletes Going For Broke

IT SEEMS to be easier to become a pro-sports millionaire than it is to manage the money. Athletes who are accomplished on the field often are woefully unprepared for budgetary reality. And there are so many pitfalls to avoid, especially the question: Where has all that money gone?

News item: Jack Clark declared bankruptcy. He was in the second year of a three-year contract with the Boston Red Sox that paid $8.7 million. Clark said he had spent more than $2 million organizing a drag racing team. He wasn't happy with a $2.4 million home he had under construction on a golf course in California. He ordered the place remodeled before he moved in. He spent $60,000 for new marble flooring because he did not like the floor that was in place.

Clark and his family never lived in the house. According to papers filed in bankruptcy court, Clark had debts exceeding $6 million.

News item: Isiah Thomas of the Detroit Pistons heads the group that purchased American Speedy Printing Company, one of the largest printing firms in the world, with 517 centers across the United States.

American Speedy is Thomas' fourth business, even as he continues his basketball career. He is not an absentee owner. He participates in business decisions and learns the inner workings.

"In the last two years," Thomas says, "I've spent more time talking to CEOs than to basketball players."

Money and professional sports go hand in hand. It's possible to talk money without bringing up pro athletics, but it's rare when big-time sports are the topic and money is not an integral part of the discussion.

Clark and Thomas play different games but they share a common bond. They are both veteran athletes who have benefited from exquisite timing: Their careers have coincided with the explosive rise of sports salaries.

When they broke in, the best players earned somewhere in the low- to mid-six figures. That number has shot into the millions.

Thomas and Clark are not unique. There are exactly 100 baseball players being paid at least $3 million this season. The average salary in major-league baseball and the National Basketball Association has passed $1 million. A host of relatively obscure offensive linemen in the National Football League have multimillion-dollar contracts, the result of real free agency.

What is happening to all this money? How many athletes dispose of it quickly and imprudently, as Jack Clark did? And how many use wealth and fame as an opening to earn even more in business, as Isiah Thomas does? Many inside pro sports think there are too many Jack Clarks and too few Isiah Thomases.

Even before salaries took on a Monopoly-like absurdity, athletes were somehow managing to go broke before or soon after their careers were finished.

Denny McLain, Detroit pitcher in the 1960s, was one of the first players to cash in big. He squandered his earnings and eventually landed in jail.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar brought a landmark suit against his agent in 1985, charging that he had been defrauded. He sued for $59 million.

Ron Guidry, Johnny Unitas, Brooks Robinson, Tony Dorsett, Rollie Fingers, Derek Sanderson, Randy Jones, Jay Johnstone, Raymond Clayborn, World B. Free, George Foster, Bob Forsch and Don Sutton are just a few of the many who have suffered serious financial problems during or after their careers.

Rick Wise, pitching coach of the Pawtucket Red Sox, had a net worth of $2.2 million when he retired as a player in 1982. Five years later, he was $800,000 in debt.

"I wasn't the one that did it. I wasn't the one who made the investments," Wise said. "I trusted somebody else to do it and he didn't do the job. It happened to me after my career was over. When the tax shelters were ruled against, I wasn't playing ball anymore. My top earning years were gone."

Charles Barkley, Jim Kelly, Tony Gwynn and Eric Dickerson have had major financial setbacks but regained their footing thanks to on-going salaries.

One study found that, despite the money, bankruptcies are four times more frequent among baseball players than in the general population. Another study, commissioned by the NFL, found that 60 percent of former players reported serious problems - personal or financial - within the first six months after retirement.

The study found that the percentage of players with troubles is increasing, even with the tremendous growth in salaries.

Tom House, a former pitcher and now an executive with the Texas Rangers, is one of the first - and loudest - voices calling for help for athletes in managing their money and planning life after sports.

Athletes who often look invincible on the field are vulnerable off the field, House maintains.

On the subject of athletes dealing with their money, House says "Jack Clark is the rule, not the exception."

House has studied this situation and written about it. He has a doctorate in psychology from the University for Humanistic Studies in San Diego. His dissertation, on the lifestyle of a professional athlete, was entitled the "Terminal Adolescence Syndrome."

House argues that the life of an athlete is so different from what most would consider normal that it can - and often does - lead to problems and a false perspective.

"It has been shown," House said, "that athletes in general are ill-prepared for the realities of day-to-day living outside a sports environment . . . it is equally apparent from this study that our contemporary society programs them for a lifetime of frustration when playing days are over. Beginning with a child's earliest evidence of athletic superiority in youth baseball, through adolescence and sports competition at school, to physical maturation and professional play for pay, talented young men are treated `differently' if they excel on the athletic field.

"It seems that psycho-emotional difficulties are initiated unknowingly by the adults who guide these pre-adolescent baseball `stars.' Many loving parents, caring teachers and quality coaches with good intentions will too often allow sports priorities to impede real world development . . . sadly, the better the athlete, the bigger the dream and the further from reality everyone involved can stray."

House uses himself as an example of how problems can develop. He said his slowness in escaping Terminal Adolescence Syndrome nearly cost him his marriage. It did cost him his money.

Several years after his playing career, he filed for bankruptcy, citing debts of $1.1 million. After that, he returned to school and earned his advanced degree. He spends part of his time counseling athletes. He knows it often is a losing battle.

The tremendous surge in salaries has only exacerbated the situation for today's athletes, House maintains. He is convinced there is a need for guidance for athletes.

Others agree. Even the leagues are trying to help. Several teams conduct lifestyle educational programs for their athletes. The biggest source of help is coming from player unions.

"We've all heard the horror stories," said Alex English, a former basketball star, now director of player programs with the National Basketball Players Association.

"They've been documented. That's why we are working now on developing programs designed to eliminate a lot of the things we've heard about. It's an area we're focusing on," said English.

"There are many instances where players have had long careers, but ended up with nothing to show for it," said Doug Allen, a former NFL linebacker who serves as assistant executive director of the National Football League Players Association.

"There's all sorts of pressure today that we didn't have to face 20 years ago. Now, with the money players get coming out of college, the pressure is there immediately."

Allen says helping players is something Mike Kenn, president of the NFLPA, has made a real priority.

"Every year we've tried to do more and more in arming our players to make smart investment decisions. We stress that players should be conservative, should not live on all they make; that they should save as much as possible."

Donald Fehr, executive director of the Major League Baseball Players Association, said his group five years ago launched a program aimed at helping players handle their money. It did not last.

"The players just weren't interested," Fehr said. "There's this tendency to say that, `Yeah, I know some planning should be done, some education should be done, but it doesn't have to be done now. It can be done next year, it can be done the year after because I'm going to be playing for however many more years.'

"I don't want to say it's a very serious problem in the sense that the country's going to collapse tomorrow if we don't do something about it, but it's one which affects lots and lots and lots of professional athletes."

Athletes often talk about how the process has changed, how it has gone from being a game to a business. But they have not necessarily become better businessmen.

"The very people who are earning the money are the ones least prepared to handle it," Fehr said.

Union efforts to better educate their members and the efforts of people like House is a start. But the process still has a long way to go.

"Five years ago, maybe five percent of the players were interested (in financial and post-career programs organized by the union)," Fehr said. "Today, maybe 25 percent."