Adonal Foyle tackles pro athletes’ financial issues

Fri Aug 9, 2013

by Robertson S. Henry

Having retired from the NBA, Adonal Foyle, who hails from St Vincent and the Grenadines, has concentrated on assisting kids through his Kerosene Lamp Foundation, and his book entitled “Too tall Foyle”. He has now set his sets on another target.{{more}}

All over the world, there are numerous professional athletes who have fallen from financial grace because of many issues. These include trusting the people around them, people management, injuries, too large entourages, spending on personal wants, spending on wants of friends, and the age-old stealing by accountants and or financial managers.

Speaking in an exclusive interview, Foyle said that he got upset reading newspaper article after newspaper article on professional athletes who have earned tremendous sums of money and lost it all at the end of their careers.

What are the challenges that these guys face? Why were they facing these challenges at the time that they did?

In the course of trying to find answers, Foyle spoke to about 19 retired professional basketball players, and a few who are currently active.

They were very generous, explaining to him the mistakes they had made, some that they see other players presently making, and out of the many fruitful discussions, were able to categorise the issues.

Subsequently, he was able to lay it out in a simple form and wanted it to be accessible to a lot of young people.

Following the scheduled August, 2013 launch of his second book “Why Do Players Go Broke?”, Foyle says he will embark on a tour to get it into colleges, “… because my thing is that we need to hit kids before they get into the NBA.”

He is of the opinion that when a kid is given a million dollars and told to figure out what to do with it; that is a little late in the scheme of things. “So, if we can get kids in college, in high school, and start teaching them about financial literacy and financial discipline, I think that they would be in a much better situation by the time they get to the NBA.”

Additionally, he will attempt to get it to secondary schools in St Vincent and the Grenadines and the Caribbean, so the students aspiring to become professional athletes, will have a much better understanding of how to manage themselves, and their finances. (Robertson S.Henry/robertsons.henry@gmail.com)