Former NY Jets WR Wayne Chrebet, who sacrificed body for love of NFL, dives headfirst into new career

[BurnleyJet]

Great to know he's doing really well.

http://m.nydailynews.com/1.1510478

Former NY Jets WR Wayne Chrebet, who sacrificed body for love of NFL, dives headfirst into new career

http://www.nydailynews.com/ex-jet-ch...icle-1.1510478

chrebet8s-1-web.jpg

Wayne Chrebet brings the same fire he brought to Gang Green to his new job as part of seven-member team at Barclays.

Wayne Chrebet is looking sharp in his suit and tie as he swipes his card key and opens the glass doors to the trading room floor at Barclays in midtown Manhattan.

“My new playing field,” he says.

The stakes are just as high — even higher — than they were at his old playing field, although physically, of course, it’s a much safer place.

He leaves his house in Colts Neck. N.J., at 7 a.m. and pulls into the parking garage by his office two hours later. He has carved out a rewarding second career in the financial industry after too many concussions — the hottest issue in the NFL — forced him to retire from the Jets at 32 years old.

The last one came on what became the final play of his career against the Chargers on Nov. 6, 2005 — he was knocked out and can’t remember if his eyes were open or closed when he was lying on the ground at Giants Stadium. All he says he saw was “white.”

Right after the Chargers game, he remembers somebody undressing him in the locker room and helping him to the shower. He asked his wife, Amy, the next day what happened.

“You’re done,” she said.

“No choice?” he said.

“No, that’s it,” she said.

She told him she had spoken to the doctors, who said they couldn’t be responsible if he got brain damage.

“You can’t do that to us anymore," she said. “We can’t worry every time you get hit whether you are going to get up.”

Chrebet did walk away from the game, but not the problems that came with it. He says the first year or two out of football was rough. There were days he couldn’t get out of bed.

“I was nothing. I was just a shell, aimless, I had no nothing. I was miserable. It’s a combination of retiring and not being ready for it, the depression from retiring, depression from concussions. Self-pity. At some point, you look at yourself in the mirror — you got to man up.”

* * *

Today, Chrebet is part of a seven-member team at Barclays that has between 150-200 clients and manages about $1.5 billion. “I don’t make any decisions on stocks, bonds or any investments. These guys went to school for that,” he says. “I analyze everything they do. I monitor it. As far as making the final decision, I offer advice.”

Then he smiles and says. “We are dealing with $100 million accounts. I don’t want that kind of pressure.”

He is an assistant vice president and heads up the sports initiative at Barclays, where he is a valuable asset recruiting clients as well as researching and monitoring accounts.

Football was a different kind of pressure for a 5-10, 188-pound free-agent receiver from Hofstra. Chrebet was fearless going across the middle and finished his career with 580 catches and 41 touchdowns in 11 seasons and is clearly deserving of being in the Jets’ 2014 Ring of Honor class as one of the most productive and popular players in team history.

Chrebet met his mentor, Ed Moldaver, about five years ago when they were playing poker one night at a country club in New Jersey. Moldaver was working at Morgan Stanley, and the chance meeting turned out to be the turning point in Chrebet’s post-NFL life at a time when he was struggling to find a purpose.

“We just got to speaking about what I wanted to do and what he did,” Chrebet says. “He was very successful. We just felt that with my connections and doors that I could open for him and his knowledge and experience, that we would be a great team.”

As a result, Morgan Stanley hired Chrebet and he studied for five months, from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., to pass the Series 7 stockbroker and Series 66 securities and investment adviser exams. Then, 14 months ago, Moldaver’s team was brought in by Barclays. “Wayne is great,” Moldaver says. “We’ve been doing this for five years and he’s like a sponge, he absorbs everything.”

Chrebet has a supportive wife, three boys ages 11, 9 and 2, and a very good job. He has a very good life.

He wasn’t among the more than 4,000 players who were part of the concussion lawsuit against the NFL that was settled in August for $765 million.

“Whether or not I was part of the lawsuit, it doesn’t change anything in my life and it doesn’t change the way I feel,” he says. “It’s not going to change whether I get headaches or not. I have a good relationship with (commissioner) Roger Goodell. I played and I’m done and didn’t feel there was any need to be part of it.

“When you play football,” he adds, “you know what you are doing. It’s a violent game. It’s controlled violence. If you don’t want to get hit, don’t play football. There’s a chance you are going to get hurt. It’s just how it is. I love everything about the physicality of the sport. I liked to hit people. I liked to be hit. Football is always going to be the best sport there is."

That doesn’t change the reality that Chrebet suffered at least six concussions during his career, the effects of which at times he still feels.

He gets headaches, he recently made a wrong turn off his street taking his oldest son to karate, he will forget a name or forget his keys, but he says, “It’s lack of concentration, just a lack of focus. That’s all it is. I feel good. I can go outside and have a catch with my kid. I can play with my baby. I can walk, my knees are OK, my back is OK. What can I complain about? I’m not punchy.”

His concussion history does not interfere with his business life. “I’d like to think I’m a sharp guy still,” he says.

When it was suggested that he is more deliberate in his answers than he was with them in the locker room, he says, “The thoughts are there, the words just don’t come out as fast. I just want to make sure I say the right thing, that’s all.”

Even though it seems just like yesterday that Chrebet started out 11th on the depth chart when the Jets signed him in 1995, he turned 40 in August. He knows about the health problems that concussions have caused for players years after their careers are over. Only a day after he spoke about his post-football life, it was reported that Leonard Marshall, Tony Dorsett and Joe DeLamielleure have been diagnosed with signs of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a degenerative disease of the brain caused by head trauma.

“Me and my wife, we read the stories and we talk about it, but I don’t know. What can you do?” Chrebet says. “That’s why I say there is not enough research, not enough time has passed, to see studies of what this is doing. It is what it is. The damage is either done or hasn’t been done. There is nothing you can do about it. You live your life the way you live it. If something like that happens, then you deal with it. That’s how me, my wife and kids look at things. Whatever obstacle or challenge I have from concussions or anything else, we will take head on, we will deal with it and move on.”

Chrebet once was allowed back in a 2003 game against the Giants after he suffered a concussion. He returned to the field in a game in Dallas in 1999 after he was hit and couldn’t see out of one eye. He would often watch films the day after a game and not remember any of the plays he made. “How did I run that route,” he says. “Is it like you’re on auto pilot?”

He said twice in his career he suffered concussions on consecutive weekends and didn’t think twice about returning to the field. That would not happen today with the strict protocols the league has established regarding players returning to the field after a concussion, but there are still many unanswered questions surrounding the issue.

“What do you consider a concussion? Is it being unconscious? Is it being dizzy or getting your bell rung?” Chrebet asks. “What’s the sense it’s not a contest to see who had more concussions. I don’t find any great value in saying, ‘Oh, I had 10, well, I had 11.’ I had to retire because of them. I don’t care if it was one or 20. I was forced to stop because of them.”

Chrebet said the fear of losing his job motivated him to play with the all-in mentality instead of sitting out when it was probably the best thing.

“There’s a good chance a young guy can come in and make a couple of plays and the next thing you know you move down one spot,” he says. “I don’t know if I was ever in position where I could afford to take too much time. I never put myself in the mind-set where I had it made. I don’t care what it was, I was going back in the game. It was like a badge of honor if you could go through a game like that. Bryan Cox broke his leg and he was still out there. People say that’s crazy. I’m like, ‘That’s awesome.’ I love stuff like that.”

Now, Chrebet loves his life and his job, and he says he is not worried about his future.

“I can’t worry about stuff I can’t control,” he says. “I can control that I am a good father, husband, friend.”

[Lizard King]

God bless that guy.

My father's friend knows him well. He is definitely not the sharpest tool anymore. It's sad.

[Maxman]

That article said that he suffered at least 6 concussions.  I heard Wayne say he believes that # is over 10.  I think he said 12 or 13 at least.  The real point is he isn't sure because they didn't try to figure it out each week.  It doesn't seem like it was that long ago, but that was a different world.

[pointman]

tl,dr. Whats his new career?

[bitonti]

tl,dr. Whats his new career?

 

reading between the lines he recruits clients and is learning about the financial world in the process.

I hate to say this but check in on Wayne when he's 50 years old. He's at the "OJ Simpson making Naked Gun" part of his post football career. 

[pointman]

Thanks bitonti. 

[Lizard King]

He is a financial advisor.

[Larz]

dr yes

 

**** that guy

[kelticwizard]

reading between the lines he recruits clients and is learning about the financial world in the process.

 

Willie Mays and other sports stars used to be "greeters" in Las Vegas.  This is similar, but perhaps a bit higher up the scale paywise.

 

I don't know if he really is going to learn about the financial world, but you never know-he might.

[Maxman]

I got an email at work this week from Mark Bavaro this week.  He runs business development for a tradeshow company.  

 

If I was in the NFL, the thought of a 9 to 5 after my career was over would suck.

[joebabyny]

Willie Mays and other sports stars used to be "greeters" in Las Vegas.  This is similar, but perhaps a bit higher up the scale paywise.

 

I don't know if he really is going to learn about the financial world, but you never know-he might.

 

Back in a former life when I was on an institutional equity trading desk we would always be getting calls from sales traders trying to drum up business. Usually you don't even bother taking the calls as you are busy with what you have going on. There was one firm who had an older sports star, I think a big time former Ranger but I don't remember his name as I know nothing about hockey, as one of their sales traders. The deal is, when you are pounding the lines it is tough to get through to the guys doling out commission dollars, but a big time former local sports hero has a way of getting people to take his call. These guys are used to get clients on the line, get them to come out for a free steak dinner, build the relationship.

 

Good for Wayne, any fame he has comes from being a warrior on the field for a team I bleed green for. If he can parlay that fame into a new career than I am happy for him, he deserves it and more.

[kelticwizard]

..Good for Wayne, any fame he has comes from being a warrior on the field for a team I bleed green for. If he can parlay that fame into a new career than I am happy for him, he deserves it and more.

Oh, I don't blame any retired athlete for using his fame to get a job.  It might be stretching things a little for Wayne to say that he has a financial career at this point, but Chrebet wouldn't have that job for that financial firm if he didn't bring in the clients, so he's earned it.

[MexiRoll6]

I loved Chrebet. The ONLY good player Rich Kotite EVER found, I wish Keyshawn Johnson would have shut his jealous trap instead of calling him the 'team mascot' but Chrebet showed Key who the 'man' was for sure. I wonder if Chrebet ever thought of crying about Keyshawn's 'bullying' of him. Nah, he just went about his business and MADE Key shut up.

[Steveg]

I'd love to know waht he's getting paid to do that job.