The Foundation Everyone’s Missing

Everyone talks about financial literacy. But what does it actually mean to have a financial foundation? 

The foundation starts with questions like: What is money and how does it affect your feelings? What is the true difference between a need and a want? Why do I care if an expense is predictable/unpredictable or fixed/variable? How do I navigate through ‘loud’ wants? (Actually, what is a ‘loud’ want?)

What do you do when a want feels extremely important but doesn’t fit inside your spending plan? What do you do when you just know all of your expenses are priorities? And one of the biggest ones – how do you navigate through all the emotions that come with the financial statement ‘What Now?’

Before we can ask an athlete (or anyone for that matter) to manage significant amounts of money, we need to give them the space to answer these questions. It’s uncommon for an 18-year-old to arrive on campus with answers to these questions.

Why? Simply stated, they are just young adults. And we forget what that means.

In today’s world, if you’re in the 1% (making about $750K or higher), you’re most likely a high-level executive, an entrepreneur, or a professional in areas like finance, technology or medicine. You’re someone who has slowly become financially successful through experience, missteps and challenges which over time enabled you to innately learn the answers to the financial foundation questions above.

Unfairly, society expects the 18-22 year old athlete who suddenly becomes wealthy through NIL to behave as though they have the financial expertise of the successful 1%. Society incorrectly assumes that if the athlete is given the basic mechanics of budgeting, they can simultaneously (on their own) figure out the answers to those basic financial questions. And given that assumption, it feels justified belittling athletes and calling them failures for making basic, amateur financial mistakes.

Very little consideration is given to the fact that whether the athlete came from poverty, had an allowance/summer job or had parents handling everything, odds are they never navigated managing significant money independently before arriving on campus. They do not have the years of experience that would have given them the ability to learn those answers independently.

This foundation isn’t taught in seminars. It’s built through experience, guidance, and space to answer these questions at manageable stakes.