Ian Wheeler is an NFL player. Here he is, scoring twice in 1 quarter for the Chicago Bears. He's trying to make the team.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=drRFXKqpCj8
He just found out that he tore his ACL. His season is over. His mom is consoling him.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/LX-mQUT-qf8
NFL contracts are divided into guaranteed money and non-guaranteed money. Injured players are only entitled to their guaranteed money.
His total NFL contract was ~$2.8 million dollars. How much of that do you think was guaranteed?
1/N
The NFL preseason starts in summer, with each team having a 99 man roster. By the end of the summer, each team must cut down to a 53 man roster. Ian Wheeler did not make the 53 man roster.
When people say that the average NFL career is 3.3 years, they're only counting people that make a 53 man roster. They don't even count people like Ian Wheeler. If they did, the average would be even lower.
Ian Wheeler plays running back. Average career for running backs is even shorter (2.6 years).
2/N
ACL stands for Anterior Cruciate Ligament. It stops the upper and lower parts of your leg from sliding past each other.
A running back is a football player that is deceptively hard to tackle. They are good at "making people miss." They get a defender to think that they are running in one direction, then rapidly shift their speed and trajectory to go in a slightly different direction.
https://m.youtube.com/shorts/0wkXMXbuy-4
This doesn't work without an ACL.
ACL - Another Career Lost
NFL - Not For Long
3/N
Ian Wheeler went to Howard University, a Historically Black College or University. HBCU is a fancy way of saying, "When the USA was even more racist, and Black people weren't allowed to attend regular universities, this is where all the Black people that should have been in those regular universities went to get educated."
Howard University remains one of the best universities in the world for educating Black folk. Great education + less racism.
Kamala Harris went to Howard University.
4/N
When I remind folks that the median software engineer earns more than the median NFL player, that's not a flex on how much software engineers make. Many of the people reading this are software engineers, and you know you ain't Rockefeller.
It's a reminder that the vast majority of NFL players are Ian Wheelers, not Tom Bradys.
NFL players being broke after their careers isn't just "They're bad with money! Didn't he sign a $2.8 million dollar contract?! If I had that I'd be set for life!"
5/N
People think Ian Wheeler has almost $3 million from his NFL career. But he has closer to $60K (his guaranteed money, plus a few months of salary). It's a bad deal.
There are better options for Howard graduates.
About 10 years ago, I started connecting Howard, and all the HBCUs, with leading tech companies. I got involved with projects at my company and across the industry, and started some new ones. This has had a transformative effect on the number of Black software engineers.
6/N
Like most US college grads I attended a predominantly white institution (PWI). Most of y'all have never heard the term PWI before! Because white is the default.
I was the first Black CS grad from Pomona College. When I sponsored 24-hour hackathons at Pomona, kids would run around the CS building at 2am, to wake themselves up.
The Howard kids changed this tradition to the "2am Turn-up." One kid figured out how to change the light colors in Google's conference room!
7/N
The 2am Turn-up grew into "Howard West," an extension of Howard in silicon valley, similar to UPenn and Carnegie Mellon programs.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UIzkt5BmxYc
Howard West added other leading HBCUs, and grew into Tech Exchange
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jKiEQa8qU1s
No, I don't host or sponsor 24 hr hackathons anymore. Yes they can be harmful. That's not the point.
No, you don't have to work at Google, or any big tech company, or any tech at all. That's not the point.
The point is: Black kids have options.
8/N
@mekkaokereke Apologies if I'm hijacking. Related point. Lots of white kids assume that they have other options and so they don't get thrown to the football meat grinder.
I don't know first hand how Black kids perceive it.
In the 80's I was a back-bencher on a high-level HS football team. (D1 and NFL graduates.)
Our trainer pushed steroids. He ended up in prison.
My friends who actually played and got pressure to use responded, "F you, I've got a good life ahead of me. I'm not using."
@mekkaokereke [And to clarify, there were only maybe 3 Black kids on the team, one of whom was a star and friendly with me. We didn't discuss this issue and I don't want to suggest he did anything wrong. The kids I discussed it with were white.]
@D_J_Nathanson @mekkaokereke my college roommate was recruited heavily at high-school, but everyone talked about making him stronger and faster, and provided numbers that would be impossible to meet without steroids. He declined for the exact reasons you state