NFL’s Bart Scott Coaching Athletes in Financial Literacy

Former NFL linebacker Bart Scott is taking his defense off the gridiron and into money management—helping NFL players become financially responsible.

“Athletes are very coachable and we understand that education is the key to know better, to do better and just how important their playbook is for football, their financial playbook is equally as important and that sometimes [is] what goes forgotten,” Scott said in an interview with the FOX Business Network.

That’s why he’s teaming up with Morgan Stanley (NYSE:MS) to educate athletes from a collegiate level to the pros.

“Over the course of the past two years we’ve had an opportunity to get in front of close to 8,000 athletes — student athletes and professional athletes – giving these individuals a foundation in terms of making good decisions, surrounding yourself with a good financial team, getting out of the gate in terms of having a game plan and a budget and being able to stick to that earlier on,” said Drew Hawkins of Morgan Stanley.

With 78% of NFL players going bankrupt within two to five years after retirement, according to Sports Illustrated, Hawkins said the key to long-term financial success is to get them comfortable with their financials early on.

“They are now becoming the CEO of me incorporated and instead of delegating all of these responsibilities we teach them how to select a team, how to access that team, how to make good decisions and how to monitor that as they are going through the continued process, whether it’s working with their agent, CPA, their financial advisor,” he said.