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Athletes deserve to get paid. That is not the problem.

Billy D gave 30 years to Clemson before he became AD at Anderson University. When he played, the school handed him 15 dollars a month for laundry. Today, players are signing six-figure deals before they take a single college snap.

He is not angry about that.

He saw what those kids gave up. Weekends gone. Buses pulling back into campus at 3 in the morning. Bodies wrecked by Tuesday. Most of them coming from homes where there was no money for a movie ticket, much less a meal off campus.

When people frame the NIL fight as athletes versus institutions, Billy D shakes his head. The athletes earned a seat at the table a long time ago.

Here is where it gets harder to defend.

A kid signs for 100 thousand dollars at School A.
School B offers 250 thousand dollars to transfer.
He leaves. No contract. No buyout. No accountability in either direction.

That is not a market. It is not free agency either, which means it has rules and structure. What we built sits somewhere in between, and the in-between is what is pulling programs apart.

You can love the athlete and still question the structure. Both can be true at the same time.

In the pros, the contract protects both sides. The player gets guaranteed money, which means security for his family. The team gets time to build something, which means developing talent and culture. Right now in college, neither side gets protection. The coach can be gone in two seasons. The roster can turn over in a weekend. The kid who actually wanted to stay and finish what he started gets pressured to chase the next number.

Meanwhile, four coaches walked out the door this year with roughly 250 million dollars in buyouts between them. Money that used to go to facilities, tutoring, training tables. Gone.

You do not fix this by going back. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

You fix it by building parameters. Commitments that work both ways, which means mutual accountability. Compensation tied to something more than the next bidder. The kind of structure that lets a coach actually coach and a player actually develop without constant chaos.

Billy D has watched this game from every angle. Player. Coach. Administrator. AD. When a man like that tells you the current model will not hold, it is worth pausing on.

Programs take decades to build, which means investing in people, culture, and relationships.

They can come apart in a season.

What do you think? Like and comment if you have ever watched a program you loved get pulled apart by something that looked like progress on paper. 🏈

Subscribe to David's YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/ and watch Episode 22 of The Straight Line to Success coming out this Thursday.

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Most athletes retire. Few survive it.

The jersey comes off and nobody prepared you for what is underneath. Rick Sanford was a first-round NFL draft pick. Twenty-seven years later, he built a second career most professionals never reach in their first.

The difference was not talent. It was what he was willing to let go of.

Athletic identity often becomes a prison after retirement. You spend your entire life being recognized for one highly specific physical skill, which means you master it and let it define every part of who you are. When that final whistle blows, the resulting silence crushes you under its weight.

Your next identity is not waiting for you. You have to build it from nothing.

Rick played in the NFL for seven years before walking away when the game became a business rather than a joy. He could have spent the rest of his life reliving his days with the New England Patriots, retelling stories at dinners and appearing at events.

He chose to start over instead.

He became a chiropractor and ran a thriving practice for nearly three decades. He survived the transition by taking the radical ownership he learned on the turf and applying it to a completely new domain. In football, a tough loss forces you to watch the film and systematically fix the errors. Rick applied that exact approach to patient care, which means he treated every mistake as a teaching moment and every setback as data.

The principles that create elite athletes will build elite professionals in any field you choose.

You just have to accept the severe discomfort of being a beginner again. High achievers struggle to pivot because they refuse to let go of who they used to be. You might not be a former pro athlete, but you likely know the danger of tying your entire self-worth to a single job title or accomplishment that eventually fades.

When you focus on being a fundamentally good person first, your new purpose naturally emerges from your character rather than your credentials.

Have you ever had to completely rebuild your professional identity?

Like and comment below if you refuse to let your past achievements define your entire future. I read every single response.

Watch Episode 20 of The Straight Line to Success featuring David Sanford's discussion with Rick Sanford: https://youtu.be/cjiIoNVNzqQ?si=X3BLf5_D9U7P6Dzw