The strange world of sports: athletes with run of the mill jobs
The image we see of professional athletes in the media is one of opulence and wealth. A large number of them are celebrities nowadays as well. But what a lot of people do not realise is that a lot of athletes who are not
at the top of their game have financial issues and sometimes have to supplement their incomes with a second, run-of-the-mill job. This is often the case with Olympic athletes, but it is just as true in many other sports as well. It will be interesting to see
whether countries and governments start to properly support the athletes that represent their countries on an international stage.
In the past, professional sports stars were not paid the immense salaries that they are today. A lot of the time, after a prominent career in many sports, an athlete would turn to an ordinary job to receive an income until
they retired. Even these days only the extremely talented and top performers in a sport get paid huge amounts of money; the rest of the players in the sport will probably have to get second jobs after retiring or even while they are playing. It seems that
a lot of coaches and sports governing bodies advise athletes to get a college level education and then pursue a professional sports career. If they fail to make it in the sport of their choice they can always fall back on their degree and get a good job because
of it.
In the past there have been many athletes who held ordinary jobs in their lives. In 1997, Neil Webb left the game of football that he had played for a long time and then became a postman in his hometown of
Reading. He claimed he was not embarrassed at all by his second career after it was revealed by a tabloid. Another footballer, the well respected Alan Dickens who played for West Ham, became a taxi driver after he retired from the
game. He continued to hold the job for a long time and still drives his cab today. It is very difficult to see a footballer becoming a taxi driver or a postman today.
Many athletes like to stay in the limelight and a good few of them get into the movie business or enter politics once they end their careers. Examples include Vinnie Jones; the former footballer and now movie star, Arnold
Schwarzenegger; a famous bodybuilder, then an actor and now a politician and Imran Khan; the brilliant cricketer turned politician and philanthropist. It seems these men have managed to be identified with their second career just as they were with the sport
they played.
A large number of Olympic athletes face very big financial problems when they decide to pursue the sport of their dreams. Unless they are the Michael Phelps or the Usain Bolts of the world, an Olympic athlete will have to
secure funding in order to compete. Although funding can be sourced through various sources these days, a large number of potential gold medal winners still have to work normal jobs to supplement their incomes and earn a living. An example of this is the fact
that one of the sponsors of the US Olympic team is the retailer Home Depot. Along with providing the athletes with financial support, the company gives jobs to Olympians and pays them a 40 hour wage to work 20 hours a week. They can
concentrate on training and excelling at their chosen sport while not having to worry about their finances.
The problem of financial support is compounded in developing countries where a lot of the time the case is that the governments or governing bodies of the sport do not have enough money to pay their athletes and so they have
to get second jobs in order to survive. Many athletes in India can be seen working second jobs in the public sector or in offices to get enough money to survive.
Athletes should be supported a lot more by organisations and wealthy individuals, because they go on the international stage, compete in the name of a country and try to make its people proud. That has to be worth a substantial
amount of money for the population of a nation and they need to be supported.
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