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Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

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Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#231
post #65

A few colorful facts to the story here: 1) 3 years of service vests into NFL pension plan, he just hit qualification - value pegged at $21,360 a year for life (3) 2) He has not publicly commented on his retirement or reasons for it. 3) He has a hugely awesome secondary option - doctorate of math at MIT 4) He was at end of his rookie contract, next year would be the "in the money" year for him so he is clearly leaving…

It's worth reading his 2015 article "Why I Still Play Football": https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ . Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue - "I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I a…

> I drive a used hatchback Nissan Versa and live on less than $25k a year

Sure as long as your needs remain stable, prices don't rise and most importantly someone else is paying for your healthcare.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the secret to happiness as far as I am concerned; measure your days by how much you've learned not by how much you have earned. Interesting to know about the retirement 'vest' of 3 years. If he lives another 60 years that is a bit more than $1.25M.

That is the secret to happiness as far as I am concerned; measure your days by how much you've learned not by how much you have earned. Yet the vast majority of the time, this sentiment comes from people who are well-off, e.g. someone with an MIT PhD and an almost impossible-to-screw-up future. There are at least two possibilities. Either people who aren't well-off are just sour grapes, or they deal with a lot more t…

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Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "i ... live on less than $25k a year." there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

It's not that hard to believe. Here [1] is a somewhat e-famous example of a three-person family whose annual spending is around ~$25k. [1]: http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2015/01/16/exposed-the-mmm-fa...

To be fair, I believe all of MMM's calculations exclude housing, since they own their house outright.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth reading his 2015 article "Why I Still Play Football": https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ . Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue - "I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I a…

> "i ... live on less than $25k a year." there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

Excluding housing and healthcare, our annual expenses for the last year were roughly $11,800 for a family of 4.

Not fun, but doable.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#235
post #65

A few colorful facts to the story here: 1) 3 years of service vests into NFL pension plan, he just hit qualification - value pegged at $21,360 a year for life (3) 2) He has not publicly commented on his retirement or reasons for it. 3) He has a hugely awesome secondary option - doctorate of math at MIT 4) He was at end of his rookie contract, next year would be the "in the money" year for him so he is clearly leaving…

"Over three years he "only" earned ~$1.8m http://www.spotrac.com/nfl/baltimore-ravens/john-urschel-145... . - which after tax is 7 figures but still not a lot" For a lot of us this would be FU money if you don't have the desire to live big. Plus he gets the pension.

At least in the USA it is in no way FU money unless you are over 60 or something. Assuming you invested it all and didn't spend a single cent, that's 12K a year from interest (generous 7%). You can probably spend 30-40K for 30 years if you decide to dip into the principal. But if you are young, you will have to get a main income source.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth reading his 2015 article "Why I Still Play Football": https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ . Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue - "I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I a…

> "i ... live on less than $25k a year." there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

During the season and much of the off season the team probably pays for accommodations, meals, transportation, healthcare, etc.

Also, this is Baltimore we're talking about. The only places you can reasonably spend that much in rent in Baltimore is luxury developments on the waterfront and around Patterson Park.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "i ... live on less than $25k a year." there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

I believe it. If he owns everything free and clear--I'm betting he does--and he avoids big purchases and fancy trips, he can basically get by on purchasing nothing but food, electricity, phone, and gas. Tack on some clothes and reasonable eating out, and you can live well on $25,000 per year. Everything else was probably paid for by the team.

> If he owns everything free and clear

So ok say he owns his house. You still have property taxes (in some places can run from 1 to 4% of property value) upkeep family costs and so on.

> and you can live well on $25,000 per year

Not with a family. Not in a safe area or what most would consider a 'nice' area.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#238
post #111
post #28

So what's the big picture here? We've suspected for years that football leads to brain trauma. Does that mean the NFL should shut down? Should they continue to operate as normal? There have been efforts recently to make the game safer for players, but the amount of concussions and injuries seen every season don't seem to be decreasing. Can you make the game "more safe" without drastically changing the game? Any game…

A couple or so year ago, Budweiser (or one of the other large beer companies) had a display at the grocery store I frequented depicting the concept of large anthropomorphic robots playing the game. Imagine high-speed, large scale robo-soccer - for football. I am not a sports fan in general, but I would watch the hell out of such a game if it could be created. Especially if everything was fully autonomous, and teams w…

We have battlebots.

Besides watching robots playing soccer being boring, you're ignoring the fact that people PLAY sports for fun. The millions of people in intramural sports aren't doing it so they can entertain family.

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#239

Has "whether you let your kids play football" joined the long, long list of boolean values that separate members of the Red Tribe from the Blue Tribe? If not, I think it's inevitable that it will. Someone will try to get their school to close its football program, someone else will complain that the health dangers are exaggerated by the liberal media because football is a red-state passtime, and pretty soon it'll be…

Interesting anecdote from Chomsky on football and how it's a way of building jingoist fanatacism. Training young people to cheer for my team is preparing people to submit irrationally to power. As long as my political party wins, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VA5jOdPiZWI

Re: Ravens OL John Urschel, 26, retires abruptly, two days after CTE study

#240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's worth reading his 2015 article "Why I Still Play Football": https://www.theplayerstribune.com/why-i-play-football/ . Regarding mathematics as a career and his outlook on the financial issue - "I have a bright career ahead of me in mathematics. Beyond that, I have the means to make a good living and provide for my family, without playing football. I have no desire to try to accumulate $10 million in the bank; I a…

> "i ... live on less than $25k a year." there's no way i can believe that. my rent alone is $24,000.

If you really can't believe that, you need to get out more.

FYI I live in a fairly major US city and my rent is a quarter of yours. Your life experience is not normal.

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