Big-league switch

Professional athletes are moving from one field to another, jumping into business with the Kellogg School's help

By Aubrey Henretty

"I think there are players who don't understand how long the rest of your life is after you retire," says former Chicago Bears defensive back Gary Fencik '85.

Fencik, now a managing partner at investment advisor Adams Street Partners in Chicago, visited the Kellogg School in March to address a group of young athletes gathered for the National Football League's Business Management and Entrepreneurial Program, a partnership among the Kellogg School, the NFL and the NFL Players' Association. The program united current players with Kellogg professors and former athletes who made the switch to business after their pro careers.

"Our customized program for the NFL focuses on teaching the fundamentals of entrepreneurship, including finance, marketing and business-plan development," says Professor Steve Rogers, the program's academic director. "When players decide to start their own firms, they will be able to minimize risks and increase their chances for success."

Though many young people are reluctant to prepare for a job search until they absolutely must, for professional athletes looking to build careers off the field, the challenge can be especially formidable, says Fencik. "The departure line can be much more abrupt."

While the average 23-year-old white-collar career seeker is more likely to benefit from recent interaction with a favorite college professor or a previous employer, the average retiring professional athlete — often plucked directly from a college team into the pros — can be a decade or more removed from that support network. And while 30-something athletes have acquired a host of skills that distinguish them from their non-sports peers, they have not necessarily learned to package and present these abilities to a prospective employer.

"You may have a lot of options as a retiring player," adds Fencik, "but you need to put your head down and focus with that same humility that allowed you to succeed in sports."

Ryan Leahy '06 agrees. "Those few years there are pretty hard," he says. "You have to create your own marketing. You've got to market yourself."

Following a college football career at the University of Notre Dame, Leahy played professionally for the Arizona Cardinals. After two years, he was ready for something new. "I think the worst problem you have is that indecision when you're done," says Leahy.

A retail job in Davenport, Iowa, brought Leahy closer to Chicago, where he joined ABN AMRO Bank in 2001. With an undergraduate degree in economics, Leahy was enjoying his work with the bank, but felt that a business degree would greatly benefit his career and his employer. "Kellogg was my first choice and the best choice I could have made," he says, and fondly describes the boardroom huddles in which he now participates as "the closest thing to football in a white-collar job."

While Leahy has found balance and success in his new career, he says he has spoken with many former teammates who are still struggling, and stresses the importance of keeping open the lines of communication between "players" in transition between professional roles. "I don't care if they're playing piano. It's all the same, you realize."

Just as a football player can't play forever, a professional dancer's dancing days are numbered even before they've begun.

"The average age of retirement for a ballet dancer is 21 or 22," says Gregory Day '06, a world-champion ballroom dancer and member of the Kellogg Part-Time MBA Program. "The majority of dancers don't stay in the dance world."

But Day did. With dance partner Tommye Giacchino, Day owns two Chicago dance schools. "I was already kind of involved on the business end," he says. "It's a more natural progression [to teaching] in the ballroom world." What is not as common there, says Day, is training in money management.

Enter Kellogg.

Though Chicago Dance has already been a great success, Day believes his Kellogg education will add some swing to its step: "Part of my motivation to go to Kellogg is to make the business more successful."