The NFL is said to Neglect Retired Playershttp://www.blackpressusa.com/News/Article.asp?SID=4&Title=Local+Press&newsID=8633
by Gregory Moore
Special to the NNPA from BlackAhtlete.net
SAN ANTONIO (NNPA) -- Imagine working for a company for several years, build up that company's own financial portfolio, take part in its foundational growth through some lean times, even be applauded and given great accolades as a pioneer for that company only to find out that the very company you helped grow has lied to you for all those years.
You find out that so-called pension plan that will help you live comfortably for years to come is worthless by the cost of living standards of today. The retirement fund that allowed you to ''dip'' in early, penalized you for doing so and literally has you on the bread line.
And to make matters worse, the current employees of the company you helped build, the very ones who are making great salaries now because of your hard work, don't care about you or any of your co-workers because you are not a part of the family anymore.
Finally to add insult to your financial injury, the current ''union'' chief at the company was a co-worker of yours back in the day and he has literally turned his back on you and his former co-workers saying that it's his job to help the current workforce; not to strengthen a workforce long since aged. Would you want to work for a company like that?
Well for many former NFL and AFL players of long ago, this horrific example is actually their current nightmare. Former players are simply not being taken care of and what's worse is that many of these players are not just some player who was lucky in his day to make a roster and have a ''cup of coffee'' in the show; we are talking Hall of Fame players who are in a rather precarious elite group of individuals.
.....
Former All Pro defensive lineman and current Fox Sports analyst Howie Long said in a recent interview for the Charlotte Observer, ''When I went to the Hall of Fame in 2000 and was inducted, it was a travesty the kind of carnage I saw out of these guys who were in their 50s and 60s, who had defined and in many ways laid the foundation for the NFL being what it is today.?
Joe Montana was quoted as saying, ''The NFL is the worst represented league, on the players' side, in pro sports''.
These are former players that many of us can recognize off the bat. Yet for this story, I contacted several former players via e-mail correspondence and many of them were kind enough to send back interview questionnaires that depicted their plight in a small, compact form.
.....
Despite what has now become a glamorous lifestyle portrayed by today's media, if you talk to many of these former players, they will tell you that their football salary was not enough to sustain their households. The median for a player who was playing in the 1960s, a salary of $15,000 wasn't uncommon.
Up until the mid 1970s, salary ranges of $20,000 to about maybe $60,000 were usually the norm for these players.
Reports from various news entities say that maybe thirty years ago the average salary was $30,000. Yet for many of these players, it still took a second job for many of these players to survive and run their households.
''Back in the day, most of us had to work during the off-season to make ends meet'', Adderley told me in an e-mail for this article.
.....
The Social Security Election was an ill-advised provision that defeated the concept of what a pension plan is to achieve: security in retirement; 2) The transition from football to a post-career is often difficult; 3) Many, if not most, of the Group made their election because of financial hardships that come with divorce, illness (chronic illness of my wife), need for extra money to meet obligations (Herb Adderley: college education for children), job loss, and mistake (my Charger teammate, Paul Lowe, thought that his pension would be reduced by $50.00, not become $50.00); and 4) The past pension increases were designed to improve the retirement income of all retired players; yet, the members of the Group were left behind.
Many players like Adderley understand what they did in taking the election, but believe that had they not, then things would have been different.
''If I hadn't elected the early retirement'', Adderley says, ''I wouldn't been able to put my daughter thru undergraduate school at Spellman College and Howard University Dental School''.
.....
by Gregory Moore
Special to the NNPA from BlackAhtlete.net
SAN ANTONIO (NNPA) -- Imagine working for a company for several years, build up that company's own financial portfolio, take part in its foundational growth through some lean times, even be applauded and given great accolades as a pioneer for that company only to find out that the very company you helped grow has lied to you for all those years.
You find out that so-called pension plan that will help you live comfortably for years to come is worthless by the cost of living standards of today. The retirement fund that allowed you to ''dip'' in early, penalized you for doing so and literally has you on the bread line.
And to make matters worse, the current employees of the company you helped build, the very ones who are making great salaries now because of your hard work, don't care about you or any of your co-workers because you are not a part of the family anymore.
Finally to add insult to your financial injury, the current ''union'' chief at the company was a co-worker of yours back in the day and he has literally turned his back on you and his former co-workers saying that it's his job to help the current workforce; not to strengthen a workforce long since aged. Would you want to work for a company like that?
Well for many former NFL and AFL players of long ago, this horrific example is actually their current nightmare. Former players are simply not being taken care of and what's worse is that many of these players are not just some player who was lucky in his day to make a roster and have a ''cup of coffee'' in the show; we are talking Hall of Fame players who are in a rather precarious elite group of individuals.
.....
Former All Pro defensive lineman and current Fox Sports analyst Howie Long said in a recent interview for the Charlotte Observer, ''When I went to the Hall of Fame in 2000 and was inducted, it was a travesty the kind of carnage I saw out of these guys who were in their 50s and 60s, who had defined and in many ways laid the foundation for the NFL being what it is today.?
Joe Montana was quoted as saying, ''The NFL is the worst represented league, on the players' side, in pro sports''.
These are former players that many of us can recognize off the bat. Yet for this story, I contacted several former players via e-mail correspondence and many of them were kind enough to send back interview questionnaires that depicted their plight in a small, compact form.
.....
Despite what has now become a glamorous lifestyle portrayed by today's media, if you talk to many of these former players, they will tell you that their football salary was not enough to sustain their households. The median for a player who was playing in the 1960s, a salary of $15,000 wasn't uncommon.
Up until the mid 1970s, salary ranges of $20,000 to about maybe $60,000 were usually the norm for these players.
Reports from various news entities say that maybe thirty years ago the average salary was $30,000. Yet for many of these players, it still took a second job for many of these players to survive and run their households.
''Back in the day, most of us had to work during the off-season to make ends meet'', Adderley told me in an e-mail for this article.
.....
The Social Security Election was an ill-advised provision that defeated the concept of what a pension plan is to achieve: security in retirement; 2) The transition from football to a post-career is often difficult; 3) Many, if not most, of the Group made their election because of financial hardships that come with divorce, illness (chronic illness of my wife), need for extra money to meet obligations (Herb Adderley: college education for children), job loss, and mistake (my Charger teammate, Paul Lowe, thought that his pension would be reduced by $50.00, not become $50.00); and 4) The past pension increases were designed to improve the retirement income of all retired players; yet, the members of the Group were left behind.
Many players like Adderley understand what they did in taking the election, but believe that had they not, then things would have been different.
''If I hadn't elected the early retirement'', Adderley says, ''I wouldn't been able to put my daughter thru undergraduate school at Spellman College and Howard University Dental School''.
.....
