The ones that are well compensated are the ones that survived high school and probably college football, where they weren't really compensated that much at all.
In high school, the football coaches would nag me at the beginning of the football season to join the team -- understandable since I was an example of the kind of wall of muscle and flesh you wanted in your defensive lines. I never joined because it didn't seem like much fun to me to be constantly slamming into other guys of that size.
More recently, I ran into one of the guys who did join the team, played defensive tackle, and went on to also play in college. Having also relatively recently seen up-close the effects of TBI, alzheimers, dementia -- even a short interaction made it obvious he was suffering heavily from hitting his head so much; the sad part is that he's the same age as me, and that by the time I hit middle age, he's probably going to be dead. Well, that's one of the sad parts, the other big one is that his reward for all that is two jobs in retail to try to make ends meet because he never got paid much for playing, and the TBIs made it hard to find a high-paying career.
In high school, the football coaches would nag me at the beginning of the football season to join the team -- understandable since I was an example of the kind of wall of muscle and flesh you wanted in your defensive lines. I never joined because it didn't seem like much fun to me to be constantly slamming into other guys of that size.
More recently, I ran into one of the guys who did join the team, played defensive tackle, and went on to also play in college. Having also relatively recently seen up-close the effects of TBI, alzheimers, dementia -- even a short interaction made it obvious he was suffering heavily from hitting his head so much; the sad part is that he's the same age as me, and that by the time I hit middle age, he's probably going to be dead. Well, that's one of the sad parts, the other big one is that his reward for all that is two jobs in retail to try to make ends meet because he never got paid much for playing, and the TBIs made it hard to find a high-paying career.