Jobs held by players after their sports careers ended
Jersey
Posts: 542
in Sports Talk
As a former Brooklyn Dodgers fan, I happened to read about one of the players on the team back in the 50's - Carl Furillo. He was a good hitter who could hit for power and he ended up with a lifetime .299 average (a shame to just miss .300 by the way). Anyway I was surprised to read that after his baseball career ended he worked for a while on elevator installations, as a night watchman, and owned/operated a butcher shop (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carl_Furillo ). A shame for a former really good player. My question is: what other former athletes had interesting or surprising jobs after their sports careers ended?
Wise men learn more from fools than fools learn from the wise.
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you'll never be able to outrun a bad diet
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Career Earnings: Roughly $400,000
Net Worth January 2012: $50M
Jim Brown is the greatest football player to ever play and he hung it up in his prime to pursue acting. Looks like he made the right choice. When he retired he led in just about every statistical category and was the highest paid player at a whopping $60,000 a year (hard to give that up, right?). Brown became the first black action star appearing in The Dirty Dozen and cult favorites like Three the Hard Way and I'm Gonna Git You Sucka. He's also written several books, has been an activist for equality, and was a paid consultant for the Cleveland Browns for a couple years.
George Foreman
Career Earnings: $83M
Net Worth January 2012: $250M
After a hall of fame career that began in 1969, George Foreman was flat broke by the late '80s. He then returned to the ring (1987-1997) to get his cake back up and had an impressive run at 45-years old with a 31-3 record capped off by knocking out Michael Moorer. Foreman flipped his newfound fame into the Lean, Mean Grilling Machine when he sold the rights to his name to Salton Inc. in 1999. He also hustled Meineke Mufflers, wrote a couple books, and commentated for HBO Boxing.
Dave Whelan
Career Earnings: £20 a week
Net Worth January 2012: £190M
Dave Whelan is a hustler's poster child. Dave had his soccer career shortened by an ugly leg injury in 1960. His club, the Blackburn Rovers, gave him £400 and told him to keep it moving. With that same money he bought a small grocery chain and sold it for £1.5 million. He then flipped that into a fishing store and turned it into the second largest sporting goods retailer in Great Britain. Whelan sold his share in JJB Sports for £190 million and bought his hometown team, Wigan Athletic. Wigan was a Division Three team when David bought the club, now they're in the Premier League just like he promised when he first purchased the team. That's how you go from nothing to something.
Doug
Liquidating my collection for the 3rd and final time. Time for others to enjoy what I have enjoyed over the last several decades. Money could be put to better use.