Cautionary Tale

From the LA Times -

His NFL-to-prison cautionary tale leaves students transfixed. Here is Ryan Leaf's story, in his own words
By Sam Farmer

There was a joke going around campus when I was at Washington State. It went, “What’s the difference between God and Ryan Leaf?” The punchline was, “God doesn’t think he’s Ryan Leaf.”

When I came into the NFL, there were three things that were very important to me: money, power and prestige. I was powerful now because I was a famous athlete. I had prestige because I was doing what everybody wanted to do. And I had a lot of money.

When I’m talking to parents, I tell them an analogy. My emotional level was kind of stunted when I was about 13, so I tell them to try this experiment at home: Give your 13-year-old child $31 million and see how that works out.

So I’m 21, have $31 million, and I wasn’t responsible to anyone anymore for money or really anything. If anybody said “no” to me, I would discard them from my life. That included my parents at one point. I just had zero perspective on what was important.

http://www.latimes.com/sports/nfl/la-sp-ryan-leaf-20170311-story.html