Last week, on the morning after his 21st birthday, Jared Goff showed up on time for his 11 o’clock independent study class. He arrived at California’s Haas School of Business with baggy sweatpants and a hoodie on his lanky 6-foot-4 frame and a million-dollar investment portfolio on his laptop.
The hothouse question on campus is whether Goff, a junior quarterback who is projected as a first-round pick, will declare for the NFL draft after the Golden Bears’ season. The possibility accounts for Goff’s weekly trek to the Haas School’s professional faculty wing and a glass-walled cubicle that has the feel of a terrarium.
Goff, a sociology major, is taking Personal Finance and Brand Management in Professional Sports, a custom-designed course taught by Stephen Etter, one of the founding partners of Greyrock Capital Group.
“So many student-athletes treat finances like a foreign language,” Etter said. “I want them to understand enough of the lingo to be able to have a conversation with whomever they entrust with their money.”
Nnamdi Asomugha, who played for the Oakland Raiders, the Philadelphia Eagles and the San Francisco 49ers, planted the seed for the course in Etter’s mind. Before entering the NFL in 2003, Asomugha improved his financial literacy through weekly meetings with Etter. Others who have taken the course include Seattle Seahawks running back Marshawn Lynch; Indiana Fever guard Layshia Clarendon; and four-time Olympic swimming champion Missy Franklin, who turned professional, auditioned agents and mulled endorsement offers last spring while enrolled in the course as a sophomore.
“For me, the timing was just so perfect,” said Franklin, a psychology major who is taking this year off from school, aside from a few online courses, to train for the 2016 Olympics.
Speaking by telephone from Colorado, Franklin said her goal in taking the course was to “be smart about what I’m doing with my money.”
She added: “I sit down with my accountant and ask what’s happening with my investments, and even the simplified version can be hard to follow and understand, but knowing I’m taking responsibility for my finances gives me so much confidence, I leave these meetings feeling empowered.”
Too many athletes end up on the path of financial ruin. In a 2009 article, Sports Illustrated estimated that 60 percent of NBA players endured bankruptcy or dire financial straits in retirement. Lindsay Gottlieb, the women’s basketball coach at California, said, “I would argue any 21-year-old could use financial literacy training, but in particular people who come from lower-income brackets.”
Gottlieb said she was contacted by a WNBA official after Clarendon made an indelible impression during a predraft orientation session.
“This person said: ‘Layshia’s asking about 401(k)s and tax laws in each state. She’s worlds ahead of the other athletes,’” Gottlieb said.
Goff signed up to study under Etter after seeking advice from Franklin, who took the course with another swimmer, Caroline Piehl, who was subsequently hired by Nike after her graduation this year. Franklin said she told Goff, “You’re going to learn things that are life-changing.”
Franklin was right, Goff said. The course has caused him to reassess his belief that nothing is worth obsessing over because everything will work out in the end. Goff recognizes that passivity in his financial affairs can be costly. In an early homework assignment, he wrote: “Professionals do not influence your career. You do through your actions.”
He has learned that if he makes his offseason home in one state, plays for a team in another and has a game in a third, he will have to file taxes in all three states. The “jock tax,” as Etter described it, came as a shock to Goff, who had to make adjustments in the monthly budget he had calculated as part of a homework assignment.
What surprised Etter was how little Goff set aside in his budget for entertainment, meals and nights out. Goff, who grew up 30 miles away in Novato, shrugged. He is not given to extravagance. He is a homebody, as his wardrobe attests. Across the back of his hoodie was the name and phone number of a Novato-based painting and construction company whose owner, Tony Anello, coached Goff’s Pop Warner teams.
Writing down his core values as part of another homework assignment helped Goff prioritize the qualities he will look for in an agent. Trust is at the top of the list. Goff’s raised national profile has led to a few situations that have blindsided him. A student in another class, he said, recently asked him if he would sign two Cal minihelmets. Goff obliged him.
A few days later, he said, he received a phone call from Jay Larson, the associate athletic director in charge of NCAA compliance. Larson wanted to know how minihelmets signed by Goff had ended up for sale online. Goff gave Larson the name of the student in his class.
Another valuable lesson learned.
Goff’s goal is to blend in on campus, not stand out. To that end, he said he was directing all inquiries from agents interested in representing him to his father, Jerry, a former major league catcher.
“It’s pretty crazy, a lot more than I expected,” said Jerry Goff, for whom history is not repeating itself.
He did not have an agent when he was selected by the Seattle Mariners in the third round of the 1986 amateur draft after a standout senior season at Cal. He said he was home alone when a representative from the Mariners phoned with the news and then asked, “How much is it going to take to sign you?”
Jerry Goff laughed and said: “I didn’t know what to ask for. I blurted out some lame number off the top of my head. I said $20,000 because that sounded to me like a lot of money. I knew it was enough to buy a Jeep Laredo. As soon as I hung up the phone, I vividly remember thinking, What did I just do?”
He played six seasons in the majors, for Montreal, Pittsburgh and Houston. His salary was roughly $100,000 when he made his major league debut in 1990. It is a good thing, he said, that his wife, Nancy, is savvy with money.
“At Jared’s age, I had zero financial literacy,” he said.
Nancy Goff has been a careful custodian of the finances for the family of four, Jared said. She has made sure they live within their means.
“We live pretty modestly,” said Goff, who has an older sister.
On the field, Goff has the confidence to thread the ball between defenders, taking calculated risks that have paid off in a completion rate of 65.5 percent and 20 touchdown passes for Cal (5-2), which stumbled in a 40-24 loss to UCLA (5-2) on Thursday night. He has also thrown nine interceptions, including five in a loss to Utah on Oct. 10.
Five days after that defeat, Goff met with Etter. They went over his three mock investment portfolios, in which he had allocated assets employing different strategies: aggressive, conservative and moderate.
Using the calculator on his smartphone, Etter punched in numbers for return rates provided by a former student now working at a major investment bank to show how the portfolios would perform after one year, after three and after 10.
“Short run is not reliable,” Etter said as they reviewed the numbers on a white board. “We’re talking about your future when you retire so you can’t every day get into the habit you’re in now.”
Etter emphasized that this was not a get-rich-quick exercise, like the fantasy sports leagues that are popular with some of Goff’s classmates. He glanced at his phone and pretended to tap on the keys with his thumbs.
“You’re not going to be checking your portfolio every day like you do Facebook and Instagram,” Etter said, adding, “We want to know what is going to happen in the long run.”
Goff studied the numbers on the whiteboard. “Does it ever just keep going down and never come back up?” he asked. And later: “Is 10 years the benchmark?”
Etter smiled. He explained that retirement is a 40-year process.
After the class, Etter said: “He comes in and asks fantastic questions. In hindsight, he’s teaching me. I didn’t think he was ready for the 25-year, 50-year numbers.”
Of course, that is the goal, to help the student-athlete become smarter than the average 21-year-old about money.
“I want to know what to do,” Goff said, “if what I hope happens with my football career happens.”
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