The Game Takes its Pound of Flesh
When you are young, you think soreness is kind of cool.
You hobbled out of bed, your muscles ached, and you laughed thinking, that workout fucking sucked yesterday. But there was a sense of accomplishment to it. You iced, threw some tape on it, then went back out there and launched your body onto the floor all over again.
Nobody pulls you aside and says, Hey dickhead, take it easy out there, or in 12 years your right knee might need replacement. And if you don’t slow down, when that random car runs a red light and smashes your dream truck next decade, it will wake up every hit you ever took.
Instead…you just play.
We grow up in a world that is built on short term thinking.
Where is the next contract?
When is the next season?
What is the next clip to post?
In the league, the long game is occurring…just behind a curtain..
When you get drafted or signed in the NBA, and are able to stay for three years, you become vested. Which means when you retire, you get a pension, a retirement fund and health coverage. You pay your dues and there is a system in place that keeps paying you back.
Overseas, you can grind for nine, ten, fifteen years and when you stop playing the game just shuts the door behind you.
No pension. No long term medical coverage or retirement fund set up for you. Just a handshake, maybe a jersey if you can slip it into your bag discreetly after your last game. There will be a “thank you for your service” post in a language you need the See Translation button to read. Then you go home and your body is your own problem.
Most of the time in pro sports, the real bill does not arrive while you are still playing. It shows up later.
I got my knee scoped at 21, then again at 27, then replaced at forty three. I have chronic pain in pretty much all my joints because of a menagerie of injuries.
Last year someone ran a red light totaling my truck and wrecking my foot and my back…such is life.
One bad step in practice years ago, or that dirty hit where the ref ignored your plea and told you to play on, or the one car that runs a red light…it all adds up.
And if you spent your life overseas and your current job doesn’t provide exceptional health insurance…not to sound like an Allstate commercial, but you are not protected from mayhem.
You play season after season in different countries, under different contracts, with different rules and different team doctors. Everybody slaps their logo on your chest and calls you family until the moment you are no longer useful.
Once you leave that country, that club, that league…you are gone and so is that insurance.
Then you go home and ask around what your peers are doing and get varying answers like:
“I am on Cobra right now, but that is killing me.”
“I am between gigs, so I am just rolling the dice till I sign again.”
“I am just training this summer so I am not paying for anything. I will be fine.”
All those are horrible, but the last two scare the shit out of me. You spend the off season doing the most violent training on earth. Lifting insanely heavy weights, followed by cutting extremely hard for several straight hours, then scrimmaging against try-hards. And many are doing it with zero coverage. No health insurance while they are putting their career legit on the line.
Stuntpeople jump off a building and studios insure them for millions every movie. There is a team of people whose entire job is to make sure their broken ankle is covered.
We are stunt people…we just never know when the fall is coming.
And when you finally hit the wrong angle, or land on a foot, or snap something in a simple workout back home, that bill will be addressed to YOU.
The medical system does not care that you were a pro, they care about payment. And currently, medical coverage in the States is through the roof.
You will need help. And for overseas athletes, there has never been a real infrastructure for life after the last contract. Everyone tells you to:
Save your money…Get a financial advisor…Be smart.
And that matters. But if you blow out your knee or need your hip done or you get in a random accident, that one medical event can wipe out years of smart decisions.
That is the problem we are attacking. We are building infrastructure for overseas athletes that should have existed the whole time. A system that does not follow one team or one league, but follows the athlete.
We are working to build a home where an overseas athlete can say,
I am covered while I play...I am covered while I train…I am covered when I retire…I am not figuring this out alone.”
This is not a guarantee that no one will ever get hurt or face a massive bill. No one can promise that. What we can build is structure.
We can negotiate better as a group than any of us ever could as a random coming home from Turkey with a sore knee and a folder of MRI scans.
The future of overseas athletics cannot just be more content and better highlights. There has to be better systems behind the scenes.
You should be able to play in Lithuania, then Japan, then Spain, and not completely restart your life plan every single year. You should have options when a freak accident happens after your last contract. You should not have to roll into summer uninsured. The dream was always to play professionally, now the dream has to grow up a little.
The dream has to include being able to pick up your kids without your back seizing up, or knowing that one bad step, does not erase everything you built.
That is where we are heading.
We are building this for the younger version of us who thought sore knees were just a cool badge of honor. And for the vet who is reading this with an ice pack on his back right now. And finally for the kid in the gym today who has no idea how fast ten years can go.
The game will take its pound of flesh…the future needs to give you something back.