"Once the cheering stops: The life of a retired pro-athlete"

Although once, professional athletes made tons of money, the moment when they retire changes their lives completely. They are now not getting a million dollar check each week and cannot keep on spending the amounts of cash they were before. A retired athlete, now has to find a way/ job in which he can manage to keep on living the luxurious life he was living while still playing. For most retired athletes this does not end well. Challenges like, not being able to spend thousands of dollars in a week, losing houses they cannot afford anymore, and getting in trouble with the law. This transitions is very hard for them because since the beginning, many of them went from not having tons of money to having so much that they just throw it away. Not really knowing how to invest/ manage their money, therefore once the source of the money making is gone is it hard for them to go back to the old days in which they had to budget and save up their money. Personally, I have been affected by bad decisions that my father (once one of the highest paid basketball player in Puerto Rico) made once he retired and did not know how to live without the pay checks he received every week. This affected his way of budgeting and controlling his money, because once he retired in basically 2 to 3 years he was finding himself in debt and with no money to pay for his child support. I think professional athletes should understand from the beginning of their career to the end that money is not never ending, they should learn to budget and save up so that them and their families can live a prosperous life without encountering any surprises in the end.
Neira Ortiz-Ruiz