Aside from on the field, 30 NFL players just made a major touchdown in their academic careers. This July, the 2016 class graduated from University of Miami’s Executive MBA for Artists and Athletes program. Out of the new grads, many are or were former players in the National Football League and are among the program’s first graduating class.
The new business program offers the athletes a new way to look at their careers. Take retired Buffalo Bills wide receiver Lee Evans, for example, who says he once felt iffy handling conflicting advice from different advisers on his varied investments, but now has an independent mind to come up with his own strategy.
“Like their work on the field, this MBA program is intense, demanding a significant investment of time and energy on the part of each participant,” said Anuj Mehrotra, interim dean of the University of Miami School of Business Administration.
Receiving an education isn’t quite the same as the sport the graduates get paid millions to play, yet Cincinnati Bengals defensive end, Carlos Dunlap told U Miami he enrolled in their program “to prepare for life after football,” to learn how to run businesses and where to invest his money. With this program, retired athletes now have a chance and the means to create a plan outside of the NFL.