So one of the top issues people seem to have with wives of professional athletes is that we went after our husband’s money and now should have nothing to complain about because we are loaded with money now. Here is an example of what someone had to say:

hello. i love your blog…I understand your husband provides for you but you are coming off a little cooky with this whole my life to a baller’ thing. listen, you have to find yourself a job. Have you ever heard of philanthropy? How about charity work? Seriously, you are bored and your bordeum is making people realize that with your husbands paychecks showering your so called “blessed” life, you have become a little crazy. Your not destined to be in this great position of luck, you went after his money…remember? Get it together!

Having too much time on my hand is going to be addressed in my next post, so I will just deal with the money issue here (I am going to just throw the “crazy comment” aside!). The money issue is such a tough one and one that will be really hard to delve into in just one post because there are so many facets to it, but I will try.

Once again, as I have mentioned before, there are so many levels of income in professional athletics. For the first two years of our marriage Joe played in the minor leagues, where the pay was basically just getting bills paid. Many other smaller European and Asian countries have this type of pay as well. You also have the issue of many foreign teams not even fulfilling the contract that they have signed with a player. The pay may be late by a few days or a few weeks. Or a player may never see it at all. We left Greece being owed a large percentage of Joe’s contract, which we (amazingly) were finally paid about 2 years later (this is incredible because most players know if they leave Greece being owed money, they will never see that money). So although I have not felt the pain of struggling for years to make ends meet, we have had times where we did not have the money to pay the bills that needed to be paid.

The stress of money also comes in when you realize that an athlete’s job (at least those overseas) is not guaranteed. A team can release a player for whatever reason and, with differing laws over here, can get out of paying a player’s contract. You also have less job stability because a player typically signs a contract for only a year. So in a year like this one when the economy all over the world is struggling, jobs are harder to come by. Job security is not a perk of this job!

Now with that said, we have been very fortunate in the past years and have been very comfortable in our financial state. But I agree with Andrea Butler’s statement in the CNN.com article that “People believe that money makes life easy, and that’s not always so”.   A lot of people were up in arms about this statement. But the reason I agree with her is that she didn’t say “Money doesn’t make life EASIER”. That would have been a false statement because money can in fact make many things easier. But it doesn’t mean life is EASY. Life is not easy. And although people without money often think they could fix things with money, all you have to do is look at the hundreds of miserable people with lots of money to know that it isn’t the answer.

As the Bible states, “the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils” (1 Timothy 6:10). It doesn’t say that money is the root of all kinds of evils, it says the LOVE OF money is. And the love of money can exist in the hearts of those with or without money. Some of the most money obsessed people are those that have very little. And some of the most generous people can be those with a lot. The issue with money is a matter of the heart more than anything else.

The Bible also tells us that those who have much are required to be responsible with what they have.

Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required, and from him to whom they entrusted much, they will demand the more. Luke 12:48

Joe and I have taken this very seriously and it can be tough to discern how to be a good steward of your money when your income puts you in the 99th percentile in the country. There are hundreds of ways to use money as a blessing in other lives and discerning through it is not always easy.  We will be held accountable for the way we have spent our money and that is a burden that does weight heavily on us.  I understand this may not be the type of burden that people have when they don’t have money, but it is still a responsibility none the less.

For that reason, we are not as big of spenders as people have assumed with their comments.  As I mentioned in my last post, we do not travel luxuriously.  I have never owned anything Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci, etc.  Not because I can’t but because I want to be a good steward of the money I have.  Our goal is to buy quality, but not to buy extravagantly.  So to hear about how I want all my diamonds, clothes, jewelry, cars, shoes, etc. is not something that even convicts me in the least bit.

As I said, this is a complicated issue and it is hard to delve into the depths of it in one post.  Money itself does not fix things though.  In fact, the things we often think are a blessing can be a great curse when they draw us away from what is true and real in life.

One of the comments that actually made me laugh on the CNN.com article page was that I needed to teach my husband to read!  Now I understand that there are plenty of professional athletes that might not be the brightest bulbs, but to make that stereotype for all professional athletes is really silly.  There are lots of stereotypes that exist for professional athletes, and while some may be true for a large majority, many are simply false.  Here are some of the other popular ones, besides the one of low intelligence:

1. Professional athletes are lazy.

2. Professional athletes spend exorbitant amounts of money on cars, clothes and houses.

3. Professional athletes are sub-par fathers.

4. Professional athletes are always unfaithful to their wives.

5. Professional athletes are selfish and demand lots of money and other extras in their contracts.

Again, although there may be professional athletes who exhibit these characteristics, I can tell you from one wife that not every athlete does!

This week I have been by myself since Sunday evening.  I realized in that time the thought that seems to pervade some people’s thinking.  They subconscioulsy think that Joe being away is no big deal because we spend so much time apart during the season anyway.  They sort of assume you become a pro at it and it no longer affects you.  For me, this is definitely not the case.

Although I have learned how to manage be by myself a lot better over the years, it never becomes easy.  I do enjoy having some extra time to get some different things done, but the truth of the matter is that the house is different without Joe around. He is the physical and spiritual leader for us all, and things just don’t flow the same without him. So I am glad he is due back in the next 30 minutes!

I had to think about how to write this post so that it doesn’t seem like I am cutting down Joe in any way.  Let me say up front, that I think Joe is the best husband, dad, basketball player and overall person that I know.  He is incredible in my eyes, even if those eyes may be a little biased.  But he is not perfect.  He is a human like the rest of us.

I remember when Joe and I got married and early on I had the question, “What is it like to be married to a basketball player?”  My initial thought was, “Well, it’s pretty much like being married to anyone else, I guess.”  Now I know her question was probably more aimed at what surrounds Joe’s job more than what he himself is like.  But sometimes people are not able to separate a professional athlete from their job.  Strip away the job and they are just like anyone else.  They are not super heroes, they are people who are very talented and gifted in the area of athletics.  But you don’t hear someone married to a computer analyst being asked, “So what’s it like being married to a computer analyst?”

Professional athletes can be idolized at times.  Little kids love them, women want to marry them and men want to be them.  But they are really more similar to the rest of us then they are different.  They have good days and bad days (or good games and bad games).  They go out to eat with their family, buy flowers for their wives, take their kids to the park and do all the other stuff that others do.

They just happen to play a game in front of hundreds or thousands of people once or twice a week.