sport in my heart

At the end of a steamy work day in New Orleans, Elfrid Payton offers up some sage advice to players in Canadian Football League.“Play until the wheels fall off,” Payton says over the phone in a thick southern drawl. “And when the wheels fall off, put them back on.NFL store Fix them up and play as long as you can play.“I’m telling you. A nine-to-five job, that’s not something you’re going to really be accustomed to as a football player.”For 14 years, Payton terrorized CFL quarterbacks as a defensive end with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, Shreveport Pirates, Baltimore Stallions, Montreal Alouettes, Toronto Argonauts and Edmonton Eskimos. A six-time CFL all-star, Payton was enshrined in the Canadian Football Hall of Fame in 2010.His 154 career sacks are the second-highest total in CFL history. Those gaudy stats failed to protect him from 18 months on the unemployment line. During the recession, he drove a limousine to pay the bills. There was a stint in towing. For a couple months, he worked in sanitary engineering.“Yeah, I drove a garbage truck,” he says. “The job wasn’t that bad, because I didn’t have to get out of the vehicle. I was just driving the truck. I never had to get out into the landfill. I’m not complaining about anything. I have it pretty good.”Life after football is not exactly glamorous for many of the modern-day gladiators in the three-down game. The average player earns $77,000. Wholesale Jersey The average career lasts just 3.5 years.So it stands to reason a game plan for the future is a necessity.“The day you make your first roster, that’s the day you need to look at other opportunities in the city you’re playing for,” says Roger Reinson, a Calgary police officer who suited up for six seasons with the Stampeders. “You need to do that in your spare time instead of playing Xbox.“But try telling that to some guy who just came out of Florida State. He’ll laugh at you.”Indeed. Some players don’t even entertain the subject until that fateful day when the phone rings. Report to the coach’s office. Bring the playbook along. By then, the time to take advantage of the spotlight has expired.