Normally I don’t get into superlatives regarding sports stories – or music or movies neither, for that matter. Besides some of 2016’s greatest moments were marred by something, if we’re watching closely. The Denver Broncos capturing a Super Bowl championship with Peyton Manning under center. LeBron James, err Kyrie Irving, delivering Believeland its first pro sports title in over five decades, after coming back from a 1-3 series deficit. Throw in a Game 7 road victory. One unblemished moment was the Villanova Wildcats men’s hoops team making the Big East relevant again in college basketball with its unbelievable buzzer-beater 77-74 NCAA National Championship victory over the University of North Carolina Tarheels.
‘Nova’s amazing win would normally work as my best sports moment. But, I’m going deeper. The impact of the Premier Boxing Champions series is polarizing among fans of the “sweet science”. So, I’m going deeper.
My best sports moment was more of a trending development for pro athletes. The new trend I’m really digging is the growing trend of current and former pro athletes winning in roles off their respective playing fields. I’ll share just a few.
LeBron James, recently named The Associated Press 2016 Male Athlete of the Year, continued to build on to his success in the TV world. James acts as the executive producer of the Starz network’s hit comedy series Survivor’s Remorse, which addressed several key ongoing issues in the Black community while being renewed for its fourth season.
The first five episodes have averaged 2.9 million viewers on all platforms, a 20-percent increase over season two.                                                                                                                  — Joey Morona, writer at Cleveland.com
In addition to Survivor’s, James and his SpringHill Entertainment team also launched a reality show called Cleveland Hustles on CNBC.
Former Pittsburgh Steelers running back Rashard Mendenhall – a 2008 NFL Draft first round pick out of the Univ. of Illinois – now carves up scripts as the story editor for HBO’s Ballers series. Mendenhall contributed to a pair of Steelers Super Bowl teams, earned roughly $10 million over his 6-year career, and then walked away from the game in 2013 after scoring 8 touchdowns for the Arizona Cardinals.
After hanging up his cleats Mendenhall briefly blogged about his NFL experience for Huffington Post in 2014. A group of producers with an HBO development deal soon noticed his work, taking note of his post-NFL thoughts, and approached the veteran back about contributing to their project as a writer. Ballers has thrived on Mendenhall’s watch, back in July The Hollywood Reporter the following after a third season was announced:
The show averaged 9.1 million viewers across platforms in season one, making it HBO’s most-watched half-hour comedy in six years. The season-two premiere has grabbed 5.7 million viewers so far, according to HBO.
Dominique Foxworth also spent 6 years in the NFL, playing defensive back for the Denver Broncos for his first three seasons before completing shorter stints with both the Atlanta Falcons and Baltimore Ravens. Foxworth retired in 2012 after complications from a knee injury limited him to just two games in his second season with the Ravens.
No Hollywood reemergence for Foxworth – at least not immediately. The former president of the NFL Players Association walked away from the game and headed for Harvard Business School. Now, Foxworth’s intellectual point of view is catching ears of sports talk listeners on his appearances on various ESPN programs such as Bomani Jones’ The Right Time, Mike & Mike, The Dan Lebatard Show with Stugotz, and on the TV side with His & Hers.
Dominique Foxworth’s primary role at ESPN is as a contributor to The Undefeated online feature page where he thoughtfully tried to ease public tension concerning Colin Kaepernick‘s National Anthem protest.
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ESPN’s “30 for 30” documentary series released Broke back in 2013, further stirring the familiar narrative of former athletes who squander dozens of millions of dollars within a year or two of retirement and then find themselves living below the poverty line. Hopefully, the aforementioned athletes and their successful stories become the more common alternate ending for an increasing number of former players.
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