“Definitely wasn’t interested in going to insurance or anything like that.” That’s how former University of Texas and University of Utah quarterback Cam Rising explained his decision to get into football coaching.
Though formerly a Rose Bowl quarterback, a top Heisman candidate, and an NFL prospect, a variety of injuries, including an insurmountable one to his throwing hand, ultimately ended Rising’s football playing days in 2024. But he’s still in the game.
Contrast this with Tom Brady. As is well known, Brady was drafted in the sixth round of the 2000 NFL Draft. But as documentary accounts indicate, Brady wasn’t angered by his draft placement as much as he was relieved.
Football could be his job. Brady had seen the alternative up close.
As some may know, Brady interned at Merrill Lynch during his Michigan summers. It was as assistant to a senior sales broker. A search of his time at Merrill indicates Brady was “researching stocks, updating portfolios, and learning company strategy,” but let’s be serious: smart as Brady was and is, Merrill’s interest in him wasn’t that he might find unknown equity gems, or that he would rebalance existing client portfolios to their return betterment, rather the brokerage firm figured that a former Michigan quarterback would have a lot of doors open to him from rich Michigan alums on the path to a successful career as an asset gatherer.
In other words, Brady’s career path absent the NFL would be in sales. And that’s not a knock. Not at all. Particularly in wealth management. It’s not just great work, it can be highly lucrative as evidenced by how much money the various banks and investment banks invest in the people and processes that constitute wealth management units.
Just the same, it was evident from Brady’s expressed relief that a desk job as an asset gatherer wasn’t the career path he wanted. He wanted football to be his job in the worst way, thus excitement over anger as the dominant emotion about his draft placement.
Back to Rising, he likely had options like those of Brady absent football. It explains his comment about insurance. The name recognition of former college stars has long translated to success not just in wealth management, but also insurance and realistically any other sales-based endeavor. People need all manner of products, but a call from Cam Rising or Tom Brady is picked up or returned much more readily than one from just anyone.
The problem is that just because people need things doesn’t mean everyone is suited to selling them. Phil Knight was an awful salesman in the wealth management space, but with Blue Ribbon and eventually Nike, his powers of persuasion were substantial. John Mackey described his ability to make a case for Whole Foods as “evangelical.” Which is the point: when we’re doing what animates us, our desire to work has no boundaries.
In football, Tom Brady found a work ethic that was otherworldly. Maybe Rising will too. As he told the New York Times, “I just enjoy ball, it’s a fun sport.” In 2025, there are increasingly well-paid options that include making football a career that didn’t exist as robustly as they did in 2000.
The Tom Brady of the 2000s was once again relieved to extend his days in football. Thanks to relentless automation of so much of the work of the past, football and all manner of other pursuits formerly seen as games are well-paid career and life-long options in 2025. This is a big deal, and one very much worth celebrating as 2026 begins.
Originally published on Real Clear Markets.
