Dane MehlingDoc. SailesM38217 April 2014BrokeIn the past, I had heard of athletes blowing away millions of dollars and going broke not long after retiring. But when I watched Broke, it finally clicked in my mind and hit me how theseathletes can let power go to their head and ruin their lives by spending their money on unnecessary things. It is really sad how hard these players work to get to the professional level oftheir sports and get so enamored with their success that they take granted of it. I believe the statistic was that 60% of NFL players are broke within 5 years of their retirement. That is a mind-blowing statistic. The average NFL salary is over $1 Million and the league minimum is around $500,000. Even for someone making the league minimum at $500,000, running out of money should not happen. The median annual income of an average American is $52,000 but somehow professional athletes are going bankrupt. With the growing contracts teams are paying athletes, I think it would suit them to make sure these athletes have an adequate financial assistant to help them manage their money, including for retirement. Some players do have their own financial assistant and agent but I thinksometimes they are looking out for themselves to make sure they get paid first. These players featured in the video and the ones playing today are ill prepared to handle the success, fame, and fortune on their own. Many of the players in the video were naïve and gave money to friends and family they trusted and ended up losing it all. Herm Edwards said it in the video. Players just need to learn tosay “no.”Once you reach a certain professional status, you’re going to see a lot of people you haven’t seen in a long time asking you for favors but in the end you have to look out for yourself.However, they also have themselves to blame. Athletes, by nature, are competitive. Whenthey earn enough money, they want to show it off because they are proud of themselves. They want to buy the fastest cars, nicest suits, and biggest houses. They also want to indulge themselves with women at strip clubs. Many of these athletes come from poor backgrounds and once they strike it rich, they want to live the lifestyle they have never known. Specifically, it really bothered me to hear of so many athletes investing money into failed businesses. This is a way of just trying to get money out of the people who have the most of it. I have heard before of athletes investing in and doing commercials for carwashes. I just don’t understand why an athlete would want or need to do that. My favorite was the business idea of putting furniture in blow-up plastic so it would float in case of a flood. There are so many peopleout there who will prey on naïve athletes to get money for a phony business idea.Overall, Broke was a very disheartening story of the rise and fall of professional athletes. The rise of hard work and determination but the fall of the personal life of professional athletes. Some of it is a byproduct of the culture that we live in that glorifies professional athletes so they feel that its okay to live the celebrity lifestyle without consequences. I just hope that today’s athletes, maybe encouraged by their teams, would watch this video and have their eyes opened. Then maybe in the future we would hear of less of our favorite players going