In Life Is a Contact Sport, Stephen J. Dubner describes the NFL’s rookie symposium:
In late June, the N.F.L. convened its rookies in the hope of teaching them to make choices that aren’t so poor. For the better part of four days, the league commandeered La Costa Resort and Spa, north of San Diego, for a ”rookie symposium.” Every drafted rookie was required to attend (or pay a $10,000 fine), from the No. 1 pick, David Carr, to the lowly seventh-rounders. They were not allowed to leave the premises without permission, or have guests, or drink alcohol. Cellphones and pagers were banned from the proceedings, as were do-rags, bandannas and sunglasses. The N.F.L. is working hard to breed the thug life out of any rookie so inclined. From 8 a.m. until 10 p.m., the players would sit through lectures about the pitfalls that await the unwary: paternity suits and domestic-abuse charges, bar fights and drug stings, crooked financial advisers and greedy hangers-on. The symposium would play like a blend of motivational seminar, boot camp, and ”Scared Straight,” full of cautionary tales.
A taste:
Most of them have taken to carrying two cellphones: one for family and ”real” friends, the second sometimes called a ”girlfriend phone.” According to a loose survey I conducted during the symposium — of players, counselors and league and union officials — roughly 50 percent of the rookies have fathered children. (About 10 percent, meanwhile, are married.) The mothers of those children are often shunted to that girlfriend line.”I heard from an uncle I hadn’t seen in six years,” says Napoleon Harris, a linebacker whom the Raiders drafted in the first round. ”He wanted two things. He wanted free tickets, and he wanted me to set him up with girls. And I started hearing from a cousin I hadn’t seen since I was 10. He’s been in jail and everything. He was calling me every day, sometimes twice in 20 minutes. A couple weeks ago, I had to snap. He says, ‘I’m just calling to tell you how happy I am for you.’ I had to say: ‘Look, dog, I know you’re happy for me. I’m happy for me, too, and I’ll get a lot happier when you stop calling my [expletive] phone.’”