Buried way down in the story is actual wisdom from a good person who became a wealthy pro athlete:
“I always looked at each contract as my last,” he says. He talks about being the lone guy in the locker room not to buy a luxury vehicle. “I didn’t care what others thought of me when I drove a Toyota 4Runner my rookie year,” he writes. “It was what I could afford.”
I live in Jacksonville Fl and you can always spot a Jaguar because they are the one’s driving Lambos, McClarens, and gold-plated Escalades in a town full of Hyundais and Kias and Chevy trucks.
I used to live in Aiken SC where a pro football player from that town was building his mom a mansion but his career suddenly ended and she wound up living in a mobile home next to a half-finished shell of the mansion she almost had.
The new thing is professional athletes who have their money stolen by their parents. One hockey player had to declare bankruptcy in the middle of a large contract. His parents bought a giant mansion in Malibu for themselves with his money. They took out these loans with usurious amounts due and he didn’t even know about them.
We were surprised to see him get in a newer Camarro. Nice car, but nothing out of the ordinary. Just a few weeks prior to that they had just extended his contract - one year, one million dollars. Nice to see someone with some common sense.