The NFL Draft is now just a few weeks away, which means that a whole new crop of former college football stars is about to get paid! But while we as fans only think about the cool side of being a pro athlete — the cars, vacations and women — there is a very real, and much darker, side. It’s one filled with everyone from friends, family members and agents trying to get a piece of these young athletes coming into new money. It’s something that most of us could never imagine, but it’s also something Phillip Buchanon experienced first-hand.

@IamJoeSports

Now if you are a diehard NFL fan you may have heard about this story already because Buchanon was not quiet about it during his career. But with the NFL draft coming soon and Buchanon releasing a book about the dark side of having money it makes sense to share the story again.

This week, Buchanon released his first book, “New Money: Staying Rich”, an in-depth, and at times very scary account of what it’s like to be a professional athlete. Buchanon discusses everything that comes with life in the NFL, and most importantly, what it’s like dealing with the pressures of family members and friends who think that just because you made it big, they did, too

Here is Buchanon, discussing how his relationship changed with his mother, once he made it big:

Soon after the draft, she told me that I owed her a million dollars for raising me for the past 18 years. Well, that was news to me. If my mother taught me anything, it’s that this is the most desperate demand that a parent can make on a child. The covenant of having a child is simply that you give your child everything possible, and they owe you nothing beyond a normal amount of love and respect. There is no financial arrangement. If you get old and infirm, and your kids are around to help you out at that point, then you’re lucky. It’s not written in the social contract. The mothers and fathers of the world have been rearing their kids for generations — in every culture imaginable — and it’s a one-way street when it comes to money. If they pay you back someday, and you really are going through hard times, then that’s just a bonus, a gratuity for being a great mother or father.

My mother had said my debt to her was a million dollars before, but this time she was more serious than ever. If you do the math, one million dollars divided by 18 years of raising me was approximately $55,555.55 a year in restitution. Except, at age 17 I decided to move out of my mom’s house, choosing to live with a close friend and his father because I no longer felt secure in my own home. Why, you ask? Because my mother let people come in and out of our house and take what they wanted. So technically, even if we went by her logic, I only owed her $944,444.44 for her services over 17 years.

Mind you all that nonsense his mom was talking was AFTER Philip bought her a new house with his new found money. Just goes to show money can still be the root of all evil and ruin family and friendships.

To read the entire passage from his book, click HERE. It is very interesting.

Rookies beware of the new money!