Super Bowl XLIV is a mere memory now. Faint echoes of “Who Dat” ring in our ears. We’ve seen a Brees blow through and we’ve seen the burning Bush. For fans, the season is over and we’re wondering what to do on Sunday afternoons. We could relive the season by watching games of our favorite teams on DVD but it just doesn’t hold the same magic. We could spend our days anticipating the draft or go on a hot wing fast in defiance of another season ending. We could turn our attention to other sports but football is football.

However, the end of a season often means the end of a pro player’s football life. Often, the end comes sooner than later due to an injury or just being cut from the roster. Other players, after a long and illustrious career, decide to hang up their helmet to preserve the remaining strength of their bodies.

What happens to any one of the 1,900 players once the NFL spotlight party ends, and they’re just a “regular” person?

How do their bodies cope from the myriad of hard hits they gave and received during their career?

Does a metamorphosis take place in their attitude toward winning, or does that same intensity and self-confidence translate into the corporate or entrepreneurial world?

According to Bob LaMonte, author of Winning the NFL Way, “Within five years of leaving the league, 75% of NFL players end up either broke, divorced, or unemployed.” Sad statistic and I don’t want to believe it. But, alas, it doesn’t mean it’s not true. Many are addicted to painkillers, alcohol, or drugs, and facing bankruptcy and depression. Many players whose sole identity is wrapped up in being in the spotlight will have a difficult time adjusting to an everyday life of anonymity. One former player likens it to going from CEO, back to the mailroom.

Fred Vinson, former Cornerback for the Green Bay Packers states, “If you don’t have a strong self-identity before the NFL, you’ll have a harder time establishing one afterward.”

In 1956, to help aid the transition, the NFL established the NFL Players Association, a union to assure that the rights of players are protected. The Player Development division of each team encourages players to start businesses of their own, even during playing years. The program focuses on four primary programs: Continuing Education, Financial Education, Career Internships, and Player Assistance Services. Players are encouraged to invest and plan well for their 40-year post-football life.

For every story of post-football defeat, there are many more success stories. If you browse NFL profiles on LinkedIn, Prolebrity, or Google, you’ll see just how many former players are translating their winning attitude and work ethics into victorious combinations in business and life. The same self-confidence that helped them excel as pro players now helps them excel in their careers.

A lot of the former players I communicate with manifest that same exuberant passion for their current position in life; whether it’s financial services, non-profits, web design/SEO, or promoting their kicking school. To combat the beatings their bodies took during football, they maintain the relentless pursuit of muscular, strong bodies and healthy lifestyles. The defining difference between floundering former players and successful former players is attitude. Attitude is everything and it’s a choice we all make a million times a day…everyday.

###

Michelle Hill, owner of Winning Proof, writes press releases, blog posts, brochures, and website content for fitness and sports-related companies. Her mission is to help fitness professionals and athletes achieve a greater level of success in their entrepreneurial endeavors with her writing expertise. Feel free to learn more and connect with her here.

Image by toniluca

About Michelle Hill

Michelle Hill, the Strong Copy Quarterback for Winning Proof, is a sports and fitness copywriter. My mission is to help pro athletes, coaches, and sports agents increase their success score in their entrepreneurial endeavors with my writing expertise and creative turn of mind.I write website content, client letters, media pitch letters, sponsorship proposals, and brochures for sports-related companies. www.winningproof.com

Web | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | More Posts (64)

(This is a guest article by Michelle Hill)

Football fans everywhere enjoy a special camaraderie; we join forces in unwavering support and devotion for our team, despite geographic location or economic status, we’re all on an even playing field (no pun intended) when it comes to rooting for our favorite team.

There are three important fan traits that explain the frenzy of fan dynamics:

1. Fans tend to immortalize coaches and players. I’ve witnessed football fans standing for hours at training camps and hotels, nervously clutching hats, jerseys, posters, and footballs, anticipating players and coaches to amble by, in hopes of grabbing an autograph or even just a close-up look. Sometimes though, it seems as if we believe coaches and players are Demigods – half human and half god. We hold them up on an unachievable pedestal mounted with unrealistic expectations.

When a team wins, the fans perception of the coaches and players jets off the charts. Tony Dungy, former Colts coach who won his first Super Bowl in 2007, says it this way, “The perception of you does change. People are going to think that because you win, that now you have the answers. Now, some of the things that you say do in fact, work.”

2. Fans live vicariously through players or teams. Merriam-Webster describes vicariously as, “experienced or realized through imaginative or sympathetic participation in the experience of another.” This means you’re not experiencing it yourself, but using someone else’s experience as your own.

At the helm of our armchair, we can live vicariously through a quarterback, another high-level player, or coach. It appeals to our alter-ego and who we want to be or who we’d like to be; the fame, the media attention, the excellence of the craft, the glory. Living vicariously through the personnel of our favorite team gives us the chance to be in charge; risk-free and without aftermath.

3. Fans know no limits when demonstrating loyalty to a team. In November 2009, I was at the Bears/49ers game at Candlestick Park. I had a pre-game field pass through an NFL contact and it gave me a first-time, unique vantage point from which to look at the fans in the stands.

I started pondering how sports fans all over the country demonstrate their team loyalty. They holler till they’re hoarse, beat their hands together like a kettle drum, high-five perfect strangers, paint their faces in a shiny palette of colors and styles, sit in snow and rain for hours to watch their team, spend hundreds and thousands of dollars for tickets, and fight with opposing team fans when standing in line for a $500 beer in a plastic cup.

More rabid fans take their “loyalty” to the danger zone by hurling bottles toward players and joining private clubs specifically designed to attack and brutalize opposing fans, on occasion, even to the point of death. Of course, this is obviously not true loyalty but just plain nuts.

According to James McKinley Jr., in his article, Sports Psychology; It Isn’t Just a Game: Clues to Avid Rooting, states, “Some researchers have found that fervent fans become so tied to their teams that they experience hormonal surges and other physiological changes while watching games, much as the athletes do.

The frenzy of fan dynamics is a phenomenon that will forever attract the attention and ponderings of sports psychologists. When like-minded fans from across the country are bound together in a stadium, a certain fellowship takes place, a magic camaraderie unequaled in any other setting.  May loyalty live on!

###

Michelle Hill, owner of Winning Proof, writes press releases, blog posts, brochures, and website content for fitness and sports-related companies. Her mission is to help fitness professionals and athletes achieve a greater level of success in their entrepreneurial endeavors with her writing expertise. Feel free to learn more and connect with her here.

.

Image by Scrunchleface

Image by vasta

About Lewis Howes

Web | Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | More Posts (187)