The
July 3 Sports Illustrated is a “Where Are They Now?” issue, tracking the
afterlife of several notable sports figures from years past, and Allen Iverson is
on the cover. The piece about him is titled “The Answer,” after his nickname,
and subheaded “How Allen Iverson Finally Found His Way Home.” The cover photo
is of the former fast and fearless basketball star, staring out blankly and
clutching two handfuls of long-stemmed, red roses. It’s a funereal-looking pose
that suggests that he has, uh, passed, or is about to, although there’s no
indication that is true.
The
story itself is similarly confusing. It portrays a man who lives a jumbled life,
moving from place to place, splitting and reuniting with his former wife,
embracing and rejecting the duties of parenthood of his five children.
Apparently, the “home” he has found is BIG3, a new league of former pro
hoopsters playing half-court, three-on-three games for a TV audience of people
who can’t abide a summer without the sport.
At age 42, that’s all he can think of to do with himself.
More
upsetting still is the picture the piece paints of Iverson’s finances. They’re not
spelled out in detail but it shows someone whose published basketball earnings
alone in his 17-season NBA career (1996-2010) came to about $154 million, but is
living in less luxury than such a figure suggests. It quotes him as saying during
his 2013 divorce proceedings that he “couldn’t afford a cheeseburger,” and
while men typically plead poverty in such circumstances there must have been
some basis for the claim. It goes on to say that while Iverson gets $800,000 a
year from a lifetime contract with the shoemaker Reebok, and can access a $32
million trust fund when he turns 55, he’s pretty much pissed away most of the
money he’s made.
The
subject of athletes and their money was one I dealt with in my Wall Street
Journal columns. The tale often was a
painful one, of reckless spending, excessive generosity and misplaced trust in
shady advisers. To many of the young men involved, totally lacking in
perspective, the sudden wealth that accompanied their professional status was
so large as to be an abstraction, devoid of meaning.
It
brought to mind the stories of how Don King, the wily and unscrupulous boxing
promoter, would visit fighters he wished to underpay with a satchel containing
a few thousand dollars in small bills, which he’d spread on his mark’s kitchen
table and turn over in return for a signature on a contract. King knew the cash
would be seen as real money, something the fighter could relate to, as opposed
to the much-larger sum the deal really was worth.
Suede-shoe types swarm over jocks
like ants on sugar. Privileged all their lives (albeit maybe poor)—both naïve
and arrogant-- athletes can be easy prey to those who tell them that ordinary
investment returns are for chumps, and that special people like them deserve three
or four times the going rate. If anyone
told them that anything that sounds too good to be true probably is, the
message usually was forgotten. (The same, I might add, also applied to Bernie
Madoff’s investors, most of whom had fewer excuses than a nuevo riche athlete.)
A further perusal of the SI issue
underlined the same theme. Of the six “old” jocks profiled at length (Iverson
and way-back basketballer Tom Meschery, ex-footballers Vince Young and Clinton
Portis, former hockey star Eric Lindros and golfer Justin Leonard), two more
were having serious financial difficulties.
Young is only 34 years old, but his
football career seems like ancient history. The quarterback showed up in the
NFL in 2006 after a brilliant college stint at the U. of Texas, and was the
league’s rookie of the year with the Tennessee Titans, but injuries and
emotional problems set in, and by the time he left the league in 2011, after a
try in Philadelphia, he was considered a bust. He earned a reported $34 million
in NFL salaries, plus about $30 million more for endorsement deals from Reebok
and other companies, but in 2014 declared bankruptcy, listing assets between
$500,000 and $1 million and debts between $1 million and $10 million.
Young said he gave his finances
little thought while he was playing, trusting an uncle to manage them. He said
that one bad deal, costing him $600,000, was with a company he couldn’t recall
knowing. One anecdote had him spending $15,000 for a single meal he hosted at the
Chocolate Factory, a chain operation where the cuisine is less than haute. At
last sighting he was trying to revive his gridiron career in the Canadian League,
where the pay is far lower than in the NFL.
The saddest story was that of
Clinton Portis, who earned a reported $43 million in his nine seasons as an NFL
running back (2002-10) with the Washington Redskins and Denver Broncos. He was
so distraught over losing $14 million in investments engineered by a couple of
financial advisers that he got a gun and stalked one of them with murderous
intent (he didn’t pull the trigger). It made him especially angry that the two
got off with only professional reprimands.
“No jail time, no nothing. Living happily ever after,” Portis said to
the magazine.
But while Portis was unwise in his
advisory choices he also wasn’t smart about some of his own actions while he
was flush. After turning pro he bought a house for his mother—a move many athletes
make—but this one was a 8,400-square-foot affair costing $900,000, and came
with the purple Jaguar she always wanted. He himself had “various” homes with
such features as indoor waterfalls, stripper poles and giant aquariums, and a
“armada” of cars.
When
Portis filed for bankruptcy in 2015 his debts included $412,000 in “domestic
support” to four women, $170,000 in shopping bills and $287,000 in gambling
losses at the MGM Grand casino in Las Vegas.
If he didn’t come away with much money he had fun while he had it.
BUSINESS NOTE-- Another reminder that a new edition of the
“For The Love Of The Cubs” book, featuring heroes of the team’s 2016 World
Series victory, is just out. The illustrations are by the marvelous Mark
Anderson, one of the best, and the verses and fact blocks are by me. It’s a
great keepsake and gift item for Cubs’ fans of all ages. You can buy it by
clicking on the Triumph Books link above, by going to the amazon.com or
barnesandnoble.co websites, or at your local bookstore.
