I read a study once that said the least happy Americans were big lottery winners.
The happiest – the Amish. They expect little, and are happy with what they have. If only we were all that smart!

Kudos for bringing up the topic. My response is on topic, even refuting ridiculous claims by sebastian.

Your brother had a windfall, how did he handle it?

I have personally known several people in military and college that went from true rags to mega riches including a Billionaire. I knew him when his invitation to me was to eat steamed squid and beer in his apartment in NYC because that was all he had!

This issue cuts across race, class, gender and IQ, although Sebastian and Toolboy enjoy thinking otherwise.

I cringed when an aquaintance was out with an NBA player and he blew $800,000 in one night…more than most of us will make in a lifetime!

@Sebastian and Toolboy http://www.slate.com/id/2416/sidebar/50882/ The Bell Curve is obvioulsy severly flawed. Unfortunately you cannot find ANY other data to prove your theory.

http://www.slate.com/id/2416/sidebar/50883/ Of course we know you’re dying to say the “N” word with your theory.

You’re obviously a lower IQ for wasting so much time “battling” political incorrectness to please your deep desire to insult Aftican Americans, when your children will be overrun by Hispanics in this country in less than 50 years according to the U.S. Census.

Of course the below science was created by Jews, so for guys like you two, it will be impossible to accept.

There are many social scientists and geneticists who do not think IQ is a measure of total intelligence.

“The prevalence of different kinds of mental talents has led Harvard University’s Howard Gardner to suggest that people possess seven different kinds of intelligence: the traditional notions of intelligence, such as verbal skills, mathematical reasoning and spatial abilities, as well as smarts in music and body movement, and social skills involving the degree of mastery a person has over himself and his talent for interacting with others. Conventional IQ tests measure only a tiny sliver of these skills, argues Gardner, thereby ignoring the “genius” of artists like Pablo Picasso, Martha Graham, and Igor Stravinsky.”

Yale’s Robert Sternberg has created tests that measure “practical intelligence” to determine how well people do in real life situations. These tests predict job performance better than IQ tests. According to Sternberg, “Many other factors, taken together have more influence on the outcome of people’s lives than IQ” such as personality, motivation, experience, and the environment in which he was born. Sternberg notes that “in any field such as art, technology, teaching and science, creativity is at least as important as IQ.” Even though many prominent social scientists dispute Murray and Herrnsteins’ total acceptance of IQ as the ultimate measure of intelligence we will accept their claim for the sake of discussion.

Plus a list that directly blows away the Bell Curve. These are just 10 of the 100’s of poor African American’s that invented things like refrigeration, light bulb filament (which the original bulb patent was purchased by Edison from a Black man), the traffic light etc.

http://listverse.com/science/top-10-african-american-inventors/

Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not emplying that all professional athletes do this but it’s the Beasley’s of the world that get the spot light. Unfortunately for them, they’re still in the spot light as they walk down to file for bankruptcy.

This too is nothing new to those who win big lotteries. A suggestion for your next article, do something about people who have won over $100MIL in a lottery. I’d like to see how all of those people are doing, especially those who chose to take the cash up front instead of a steady check coming in over the next 30 years of their life.

LOL ROTF … that was so sarcastically funny. Stupid Athletes Welfare Fund, why not? It would be hialarious .. isn’t out there a scam artis to plot this one out?

Enjoyed your article.
Looks like ESPN has used your idea AND substance without giving you the credit for it.
See this link:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espnmag/story?id=3469271