An article in Sports Illustrated by H.G. Bissinger follows up on six men who were high school football heroes in Odessa, Texas in 1988. If we define “football star” as “most successful male in high school society,” how does that translate to success in adult society?
Two are involved in the oil industry, one working “as a lease operator for Devon Energy, overseeing roughly 50 wells,” and the other having joined his family business of “dirt excavation and building roads and platforms in the oil fields.” One became a criminal defense attorney and joined his family’s law firm. One became a “health-care consultant” for Protiviti.
Two of the six are black. Consistent with this chart, one is serving 10 years in prison after some encounters with the law, including “paternity suits were brought against him by women who thought he was now rich.” (He apparently lost at least one of these lawsuits because he was being pursued by the government for failure to pay at least one woman the court-ordered amount.) The other black former player workers as a trucker.
None of the players had enjoyed a significant college football career.
Perhaps worth showing to a high-school student who expresses disappointment at not making the varsity football team…
would like to see similar data for college football players, as generally it’s been shown that athletes do well going forward, due to the teamwork and competition skills acquired on the playing field in college sports. In fact, they tend to go into the law, insurance, & finance in disproportionate numbers versus the non-student-athletes (will try to find economics study of this — from about a decade ago), and therefore have higher average income than many alumni. Tommy Lee Jones is but one example of a high earning former college football player (but more unusual field of acting).
skewed toward both high earners and less-than-average earners, but average is above overall average:
https://porterewhs.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/89917511/Pay%20Do%20Former%20College%20Athletes%20Earn%20More%20at%20Work__%20EBSCOhost.pdf