Homeless Athletes

Throughout the years many people in America and around the world deal with hard times whether it be with money, illness, or even natural disasters. Everyone has their own battles to fight ,but for some the struggles are harder than others. Homelessness is one of the most well known struggles that people face around the world, but in America it is not always the poor or the underclass that always ends up homeless. In many cases famous athletes, celebrities, and the upper class end up homeless around the world and it shocks us all. But the chances of an athlete becoming financially or structurally unstable is something Americans think can’t occur because athletes make so much money in their profession, but more times than not it does. Homelessness
is a recurrence that is happening all over the world but for athletes the chances are much more likely to happen than normal people. From the data that Sports Illustrated (SI) collected through the studies of schools and student athletes, the data showed that homelessness within the student population was at an all time high and athletes were among this group that was recorded. When SI was figuring out their numbers they received some help from the U.S. Department of Education (DOE) and found that more than 1.2 million students in school have reported that they live in cars, parks, motels, and even friends or family members. The numbers started to flow in minds blown adults and people around the world shocked by the amount of students and athletes that were recorded homeless, nearly 80,000 young athletes were recorded in youth sports homeless and nearly 100,000 in sports all together. 87 percent of students who were homeless were more likely to stop going to school than their non homeless classmates. According to Jonathan Brice, Assistant Secretary of the U.S. DOE, “What we are doing by having athletic programs is keeping (homeless athletes) everywhere away from the outside factors that could derail their future for further education and a successful future” (Wertheim and Rodriguez, para. 17). When students or athletes become homeless and do successfully return to a home it does not end there most of them do still struggle adjusting to having a structural home and a more structured environment. As each child, teenager, young adult, or even grown adult athlete becomes homeless or in a crucial situation within their lives at some point they all start to go through an emotional process which can be hard to accept change if they do get through homelessness.
Homeless athletes, children, or even adults have difficulties facing this they feel the hunger, the stress of feeling alone, emotional stress of being helpless. Isaiah Lamb of Baltimore explains, “My mother was always on me about getting good grades and going to college, do what you love in order to get off what is on your mind on what’s going. If it wasn’t for basketball I would probably be in the streets, with some knuckleheads doing something bad”, (Rios, (2014), para 4). Isaiah is a college bound athlete that has overcome being homeless to pursue a career in basketball and has took his athleticism from high school ball and become a powerhouse in college. Some questions that some athletes ask themselves is: how do I arrive for practice on time when you have to take public transportation, how do I stay in shape when all I eat is a 99 cent hamburger or a bag of chips each night, how do I fit into a team if I am hiding a secret about my life? Athletes struggle with this all the time this emotional stress can bring them down tremendously and decrease their will to do school work or participate in practice or class. Believe it or not the government does try to help with the homeless, when they do know for sure that
someone is homeless they bring them in and transition them into a home stable enough to live in until they are able to make it back on their feet (Rios, 2014, para 4-6). People do not realize that you don’t have to go through hard times to be homeless, you can be a multimillionaire athlete who likes to spend all his money on things he or she shouldn’t. When becoming a millionaire or collecting tons of money from endorsements or sponsors they usually end up bankrupt or homeless by the time they are 40 because they don’t know how to use it or keep away from other people who try to use them to get money from them. Most tend to invest it and try to make more money so they don’t have a downfall or bankruptcy to worry about, but sometimes what they invest in doesn’t usually turn out the way they plan and they lose more money that what they put in. Lots of athletes are financially burdened but they don’t like to talk about it to people or the press, we can see where this starts to blend with regular people or athletes. They start to go through the emotional process of being homeless and start to think how will people look at me or my family after finding out my problems or that I am homeless. When athletes start to make money in their early stages of becoming famous or increasing their financial status then they start to watch as other athletes begin to make money or follow in the footsteps of them so they know how everything will turn out (Callahan, 2015, para 1-3). Baseball great Curt Schilling made $112 million over 20 years, but went so broke that in 2013 he begged the Baseball Hall of Fame to return his bloody sock from a famous pitching performance against the Yankees so that he could auction it off. This is irony because all the money he had could not keep him from going bankrupt and the thing he is most remembered for is his bloody sock he work and would make him money to help him financially (Callahan, 2015, para. 7). Curt Schilling, “I sold all that stuff to pay the banks back,” he told the Boston Globe. “Instead of filing for bankruptcy and keeping it all, I sold it all. It sucks.” The house went, too, listed for $3 million. It sold for $2.5 million — half of what Schilling paid for it in 2004. Money is just one of very many things that can cause athletes to become homeless another major key is divorces and children. Divorce, child payments, or child support are just a few things that diminish athletes paychecks and financial status. From a league official statement that said when athletes retire or quit they are 87 percent more likely to get a divorce which will take a chunk out of your pocket. Once all their payments are done with the divorce they also have to pay their taxes which is like winning the lottery but not the good part the bad part when you have to pay about half of that to the government because of federal taxes so you are really only getting a few million when it is all over with. The average football, baseball or basketball player owes around $1 million in federal taxes each year (Callahan, 2015, para 6-7). One athlete who did overcome being homeless and becoming a huge success and football star is Michael Oher.
Now you might have heard of this name from the movie ,“The Blind Side”, which is the main character who overcomes being homeless. According to Michael Oher, (2016), Michael Oher was born on May 28, 1986, in Memphis, Tennessee. He came from a broken home and his estranged father was murdered while Oher was in high school. Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy became Oher's legal guardians and he developed into a college football star and a top NFL draft pick. Michael Sr. was frequently in prison, and Denise was addicted to crack cocaine. As a result, Michael Jr. was in-and-out of foster homes and frequently homeless. He also performed poorly as a student, repeating first grade and second grade and attending 11 different schools during his first nine years as a student. By the beginning of his senior year, Oher was the starting left tackle on the varsity football team. He quickly became a top football prospect in the state of Tennessee, which led to multiple scholarship offers from Division 1 schools. He also accepted a scholarship offer from the University of Mississippi after receiving offers from Tennessee, LSU, Alabama and NC State, among others. In the 2009 NFL Draft, Michael Oher was selected 23rd overall by the Baltimore Ravens. He started all 16 games for the Ravens and helped the team reach the playoffs in his first season with the team, he later helped the Carolina
Panthers to a berth in Super Bowl 50 and is still playing to this day ( Michael Oher, 2016, para 1-7). After everything we have seen through recent years nothing can prevent homeless but to overcome it might be one of the hardest things to do, but like Michael Oher not everything is impossible.