What crappy job has an ex-pro athlete had to take in order to make a living after retiring from their sport?
I’m talking about athletes who played at least a few years in either the NBA, MLB, or NFL.
Ickey Woods, he of Ickey Shuffle fame, was selling Omaha Steaks door to door for a while.
He’s now the coach of the Cincinnati Sizzle, of the Women’s Football Alliance.
Before free agency made ballplayers rich enough not to need off season jobs, Richie Hebner
(Pittsburgh Pirates) worked as a gravedigger during the winter.
Shoeless Joe Jackson ended up working in a grocery.
Before sports had player pensions, it wasn’t unusual for retired players to be in bad financial straits, especially if they were mid-level players and not big stars. Stars could use their name recognition to get good jobs (and would often be hired solely on that basis), but a player with a ten-year career that was never a superstar was on his own.
I bought my last car from a guy named A.J. Jackson. He was a rather high profile college football player for Nebraska, and did a couple of seasons in the NFL. (Sorry, I am not enough of a sports fan to know which NFL team he played for or if he was known)
My dad’s company had a former pitcher for the Texas Rangers working for them at one point. I think he was a painter. I’m not sure if he needed the money or was just working because he wanted to.
I think my dad currently has a former NFL player with a superbowl ring working under him. He’s a degreed engineer though, so it’s not a bad job.
Not a bad job…but Jim Lefebvre who used to be a baseball player and manager (and might still) used to tell tales on himself of being a bit player on television shows during the offseason.
Apparently he once got the line ‘Chee, dat’s funny Riddler!’ on Batman. How entirely awesome is that?
Boxer **Leon Spinks **beat Muhammed Ali in 1978 and ended up working at McDonalds at one point (as well as a YMCA.) He was also homeless for a time.
Last I heard he was a school custodian in Columbus, NE.
Micky Ward’s half brother Dicky Eklund, who once scored a knockdown but lost a decision against Sugar Ray Leonard, ended up as a criminal and a crack addict after retiring from the ring, which is pretty much an extremely crappy full time job.
Steve Largent wound up in Congress.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we have a winner!
Before big salaires, it was kind of an inside joke that ex-pro athetes had to do things like sell insurance. Mary Tyler Moore did a show about this. The ex-football stars says “If I had been on a championship team, I could’ve owned a resturant. If we had made the playoffs, I could’ve at least owned a bar.” This was also the stereotype. Ex-athletes owned bars and resturants, as you see Sam Malone of “Cheers” doing.
I worked w/ a guy once who had some time playing for the Eagles and Bears as a tight end. He was a radio sales rep here in Chicago and ended up getting fired because he was no good at it.
I worked a temp job while in college with a guy who pitched in a few major league games. He had worked for a bank but seemed to be down on his luck. He died about a year later.
There were a bunch of bars and restaurants around the Green Bay area in my early youth there were run by Lombardi-era Packers. Fuzzy Thurston still owns a bar in Green Bay last I heard, he’s probably the last one still around. Max McGee became a millionaire by getting involved with the Chi-Chi’s Mexican restaurant franchise. Max was well-off enough to own at least one apartment building back in the late 60s, my Mom was one of his tenants. One of the (other) apartments served as a place for Max’s “girl of the week/month/season.”.
I grew up in Green Bay, as well, and still get back there regularly.
Yup, Fuzzy still owns a bar (he’s had several over the years), and he still regularly shows up there.
http://fuzzys63.com
I agree…AFAIK, his is the only establishment up there still visibly run by an ex-Packer (unless you count Brett Favre’s Steakhouse 
).
Hmmm…searching through the long list of “Jacksons”, on pro-football-reference.com, I don’t see a likely candidate. None of the Jacksons whose first name starts with A went to Nebraska.
Search Results | Pro-Football-Reference.com
Mike Webster was an All-Pro center for the Steelers. He wound up broke and homeless.
Beau Jack was an all-time great lightweight boxer, who headlined at Madison Square Garden more than any other fighter in its history. He ended life as a shoe shine boy.
Joe Louis, of course, was a greeter at a Las Vegas casino, but his son said he rather enjoyed it rather than feeling demeaned by it. Someone tried once to commiserate with him, that he didn’t fight in the days when purses would have been in the tens of millions. “Nah”, he said. “I’da wound up owing the IRS ten million instead of only one.”
Regards,
Shodan
Baseball pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander (1887-1950) had a pretty hard life the last 20 years of his life. He was epileptic and an alcohol and his baseball career ended just as the Great Depression was beginning. There were no card shows or pensions to help him as there are today. He worked various oddjobs and baseball officials were so concerned they gave him a $50 a month pension to whoever was taking care of him.