Name: Here's How Tiki Barber Prepared for Life After Professional Sports
Uploaded: 2016-07-07
Duration: 3 min 43 s
Description: He's now the co-founder of a startup.

[ MUSIC ] They are not gonna lie about, these are the common things that they don't prepare for live after sports. Yeah. You were preparing for life after sports while you were playing, [ INAUDIBLE ] Yeah, of course. At that point. How big an issue is this if you think in pro sports right now? It's a very big issue because, it's a little bit of a wall with preparing for your next career while you're still in your first career. Mainly, especially in football, if you're not 100 % focused, you're going to get replaced pretty quickly. It was serendipitous for me because I was in New York and I wasn't good. A few years in I'm like " What else can I do in New York ?" And I happened upon WFAN Which we all know here in New York and has to do an overnight at like ten o'clock at night on weekends in my off- seasons with Joe Benigno just learning the craft. And I ended up being good at it and so it just kept progressing. As my football career started to breast the opportunities on this other side started to go forward. I think that the idea of branding. A talent, an athlete, it's starting to help because young kids, 19, 20 year olds who are entering their league, their sport, are realizing that their brand matters. Right, the things that I do, the people that I associate with Matter. Especially in the aid of social networks- Without a doubt. Where everything is instantly going to be shared everywhere. Madison Avenue is wherever you are. Right. And so I think that understanding is starting to position guys to associate. Not just with the cool kid but maybe the rich kid too. [ LAUGH ] You know what I mean? Or the entrepreneur. Or the guy who can help me down the line. Maybe not is very beneficial to me right now. But will help me down the line should I have an idea. And I think, that's a lesson that I always try to pass on to young kids, when they ask, how did you get to where you are now. It was by not hanging out with the cool kid. It was doing the other things, the networking that most young professionals have to do. But athletes don't necessarily understand that they should. So is this something that maybe for the NCAA attack. Like, are there things that could be done to help repair [ CROSSTALK ] I would love I would love for the NCAA to have a curriculum that totally focuses on what athletes need post or during and post career. Right if you want to be a musician you can go study music at a university, a major university. You want to be a An artist, you can go study art. You want to be an athlete, you can't study athletics. You can but... You play but. They're starting to do the marketing, the big data, the sabermetrics around sports. Those are starting to become majors. I think Syracuse just instituted the first one, but the business planning, the financial planning, building networking skill, socialization skills, those things that I have found very A beneficial in my life, and a lot of it is because I went to UVA, the University of Virginia. Some guys don't ever have exposure to. It's just go take your class, whatever it may be, and pass. Right, when you were in school, you were going to school, right. Yeah of course. There were a lot of athletes. Again, I wasn't good in college to be, that guy. I got lucky. A guy in front of me pulled his hamstring, and I was able to start my third year, before my third year, I was just a guy on the team. Against the University of Michigan, I had a big day and I never looked back. But I wanted to be an engineer, a computer programmer. But I got a football on the way. And fortunately I kept up with it and if you fast forward ten years post being drafted in 1997 I get into media. That kind of worked out, didn't work out. I'm still in it a little bit. But where I really found my niche was getting back into what I was educationally trained to do. Building a database for athletes to engage with the corporate world or individuals. That's what Thuzio is. [ SOUND ] [ BLANK_AUDIO ]