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New Playbook for Post-Career Success

Titans linebacker Will Witherspoon, who owns an organic farm, hopes to start a company that will specialize in renewable energy.Credit...Jeremy M. Lange for The New York Times

In the moments before kickoff in an early-season game between the Tennessee Titans and the Baltimore Ravens, two linebackers engaged in some good-natured trash talking. The banter had nothing to do with who would win; it was about who was further behind on his homework.

The Titans’ Will Witherspoon, a linebacker and organic farmer, and the Ravens’ Brendon Ayanbadejo, a three-time Pro Bowl player and part-time athletic department intern, are students in the George Washington University School of Business STAR E.M.B.A. program, the first executive M.B.A. for professional athletes. The invitation-only program features all of the coursework one would expect to find in an M.B.A. curriculum, but the students are anything but ordinary.

The group includes 14 N.F.L players, four of them active, and three of their spouses; the retired Olympic gymnast Dominique Dawes; active and retired members of the W.N.B.A.; a professional poker player; and a retired baseball player.

Across the country, graduate schools have seen a rise in applications during the recession and, according to the N.F.L. and George Washington officials, that trend may be spilling over into the ranks of current and retired professional athletes.

“Something like 75 percent of N.F.L. players are bankrupt within a few years of retiring,” said Doug Guthrie, the dean of George Washington’s School of Business, citing a statistic first reported in the 2009 Sports Illustrated article “How and Why Athletes Go Broke.” “We started thinking about this problem not just from the perspective of our business school, but for our society. If you give these people the right business skills and resources, what would it mean for society as a whole?”

Justin Humphries, a retired minor league baseball player and member of the first STAR class, said the numbers for retired baseball players might be just as troubling. After giving up his quest to make it to the big leagues in 2009, Humphries finished his undergraduate degree at Columbia. While there, he conducted research on the economic outcomes of baseball players for a class taught by Sudhir Venkatesh, whose research was featured in the book “Freakonomics.” Humphries tracked down more than 100 baseball players who, like him, were drafted in 2001.

“The statistics were pretty frightening,” he said. “Seventy-nine percent hadn’t completed their degrees, and 40 percent were at or below the national average in income.”

Despite the bleak statistics on the postretirement prospects of athletes in a variety of sports, George Washington decided to put its initial focus on the N.F.L., because other sports have shorter off-seasons.

Guthrie and other university officials set up a booth at last year’s Super Bowl to promote the program, which costs $95,000 and features six two-week modules in three cities over two years. The N.F.L. provides professional development courses for players, and assistance to help athletes complete their degrees. In recent years, dozens of N.F.L. players have completed advanced degrees at a variety of universities, including Harvard, Northwestern, the University of Chicago, Pennsylvania, Columbia and Duke. The league’s collective bargaining agreement offers players a tuition reimbursement of up to $15,000 a year.

Critics of the STAR program argue against creating programs designed for athletes. Kenneth Shropshire, a professor at Penn’s Wharton School, told The Wall Street Journal that the program could be construed as an “M.B.A. light.”

Guthrie bristled at the critique, noting that the requirements and cost for STAR (which stands for special talent, access and responsibility) are identical to those of George Washington’s World Executive M.B.A.

“I worry about this stereotype people have about athletes not being interested in academics,” he said. “I’m guessing that’s what’s behind the ‘M.B.A. light’ comment.”

First-day-of-school jitters were an issue for many of the students who arrived in Washington for the STAR program’s first module in June. Some, like Jimmie Johnson, the Minnesota Vikings’ tight ends coach, and Sean James, a retired N.F.L. player, had not been in a classroom in 20 years.

James Bailey, a professor who taught one the first classes, said it was initially an intimidating experience for him as well.

“I walked in the room and here’s a group of very large, very strong people,” he said. “I’m not used to that level of physicality in an executive classroom.”

Some enrolled with specific goals; others simply hoped to bolster their résumés in a time of economic uncertainty.

Witherspoon, the Titans’ linebacker, wanted to expand his organic farm, which specializes in grass-fed beef, and hoped to start a company that will specialize in renewable energy. He also runs two doggy day care centers and operates a natural supplement company. Witherspoon, 31, said that he planned to play several more seasons, but that he did not want to wait until he retired to obtain the knowledge needed to expand his businesses.

“Some of my teammates were like: ‘You’re going back to school now? What?’ But for me there’s no time like the present,” Witherspoon said. “You have a short window in football, and then you’ve got to be ready for what’s next.”

Ayanbadejo, 35, a special-teams standout, grew up on welfare in the Lathrop Homes housing project in Chicago. He said that his goal was to become an athletic director, and that he had completed summer internships to prepare.

“With injuries and concussion and all these things happening in the sports world, athletes are starting to realize that our careers are only going to last X-number of years and then we need something more than just ‘football player’ on our résumés,” he said.

The STAR program is also open to athletes’ spouses, and there are three in the program. One of them, Danisha Rolle, the wife of the retired All-Pro cornerback Samari Rolle, who is also in the program, heard about STAR while at an N.F.L.-sponsored seminar in Florida. She said she thought it would be a good opportunity to help her expand Sports and Entertainment Today, a magazine she began in 2007.

Samari Rolle retired from football in 2008 after receiving a diagnosis of epilepsy. For more than two years, he could not drive and was not sure how he wanted the next chapter of his life to unfold. Rolle says he hopes that the STAR program will help him sell a football-related invention he hopes to market.

On a warm June night during the first week of class, the students were instructed to ask fans during a game at Nationals Park in Washington how the stadium experience could be improved. Rolle said he was relieved that no one recognized him.

“I was walking up to people saying: ‘Hi, I’m a student in the M.B.A. program at George Washington University. Can I ask you a few questions?’ ” he said. “And some people just looked at me like I was crazy. But after a while, it was kind of fun.”

The fun came to an abrupt halt when the accounting portion of the class began days later.

“I like vegetables, so I wouldn’t compare accounting to eating your vegetables,” Witherspoon said. “It was more like brushing your teeth with a steel-wool brush.”

Ayanbadejo had started an M.B.A. program at the University of Baltimore, and said he earned an A before transferring to George Washington’s program.

“This time, I got a B,” he said. “And I thought I was one of the smart ones.”

After the students returned home after the first two-week segment of the curriculum, the bills for the first module — for about $16,000 — arrived in the mail.

“When I got the bill, it was like, ‘Goodness gracious,’ ” said Isaiah Stanback, 27, a member of the Giants’ practice squad who was drafted to play professional baseball and football. “I’m not on an N.F.L. roster right now, like I’m used to, so the money is tighter and I have a baby on the way, so there was some sticker shock, but I look at it as an investment.”

Sanjay Rupani, the chief strategy officer for George Washington’s School of Business, said the university had received inquiries from the N.H.L. and the P.G.A. about the program, and he indicated the STAR M.B.A. model would be expanded to include artists, actors, musicians and anyone with a “strong personal brand” that they hoped to build upon.

The students will reconvene for their second module in April; those who complete the program are scheduled to graduate in 2013. No one has dropped out, but Ayanbadejo and Witherspoon conceded that they were behind on their coursework. Both said that they looked forward to diving back in to their studies after the season.

Ayanbadejo said he thought the group was in the vanguard of a movement, and Witherspoon agreed.

“We’re pioneers in this,” he said. “But I think more and more, you’re going to see guys realizing that we need to do more than just keep our eyes on the ball.”

A version of this article appears in print on  , Section D, Page 4 of the New York edition with the headline: New Playbook for Post-Career Success. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe

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