We hear it all the time.
“How do athletes who make millions of dollars go broke?”
Ex-NFL CB Phillip Buchanon breaks down in his book “New Money: Staying Rich” how easily it can happen. Here are a couple of excerpts.
In the excerpt, the former NFL cornerback talks about family members, particularly his mother, coming to him for money after he was drafted by the Oakland Raiders in 2002. Buchanon says his mother told him he owed her $1 million for raising him.
“Well, that was news to me,” wrote Buchanon, who played 10 NFL seasons for five teams. “If my mother taught me anything, it’s that this is the most desperate demand that a parent can make on a child. The covenant of having a child is simply that you give your child everything possible, and they owe you nothing beyond a normal amount of love and respect. There is no financial arrangement.”
Buchanon bought his mother a house instead and said she could keep the money from selling the family’s original home. Instead his mom rented out the house, but eventually found out managing two homes was too difficult for her, so Buchanon says he offered a solution.
“I offered to buy her a comfortable house in my name for her to live in. This way she wouldn’t have to take out any loans or put my little sister and brothers in a situation where the roof over their heads could be taken away. She’d move out of the house that was too big for her and into this new one. Instead, she opted for $15,000 cash.
“I told her that if I gave her the $15,000, not to come calling when she got into trouble. Needless to say, she ended up calling. And, what’s worse, she lost the house.”
It wasn’t just his mom, but also relatives and friends that put a drain on Buchanon’s finances.
In his book description from his website, he warned that “‘fun friends’ and family will view you as an endless ATM.” He also wrote about family members asking for money to get something fixed, but the things would never get fixed after Buchanon wrote them a check. When Buchanon later offered to pay for the repairs directly to the company doing the work, all of a sudden family members weren’t so interested anymore.
The purpose of the book is for younger players to understand sometimes you just have to say NO or they will be in a position when they are older where they will be the ones needing the handout.
H/T Fox Sports & Yahoo Sports