Ear Hustle

Former NBA Player Vin Baker Paying The Price For Blowing $100Mil He’s In A Starbucks Management Training Program

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Lot of ways to blow a $100 million.

For Vin Baker it was alcohol, bad business moves and too many yes men and women around. When something like that happens and you hit rock bottom all you can do is pull up your bootstraps and go to work.

Baker has bounced around a bit trying to find work in the NBA and he is also an ordained minister now, but he might have found his calling at Starbucks of all places. Here is the story via the Providence Journal.

Now 43, newly married and with four children, Baker is training to manage a Starbucks franchise. He thanks CEO Howard Shultz, the former Seattle SuperSonics owner, with this opportunity. He’s also a trained minister who savors work at his father’s church in Connecticut. Most important, he has been sober for more than four years.

“In this company there are opportunities for everyone. I have an excellent situation here at Starbucks and the people are wonderful,” Baker says.

When athletes and people in general are young, they don’t think long-term and then they get old and realize they have made so many mistakes.

The crazy thing about time is it never goes backwards just forward. There is no rewind button, whatever you do is done and you simply can’t undo it, that is why athletes should heed Baker’s warning.

“When you learn lessons in life, no matter what level you’re at financially, the important part to realize is it could happen,” he said. “I was an alcoholic, I lost a fortune. I had a great talent and lost it. For the people on the outside looking in, they’re like ‘Wow.’ For me, I’m 43 and I have four kids. I have to pick up the pieces. I’m a father. I’m a minister in my father’s church. I have to take the story and show that you can bounce back. If I use my notoriety in the right way, most people will appreciate that this guy is just trying to bounce back in his life.”

“For me this could have ended most likely in jail or death. That’s how these stories usually end,” he says. “For me to summon the strength to walk out here and get excited about retail management at Starbucks and try to provide for my family, I feel that’s more heroic than being 6-11 with a fade-away jump shot. I get energy from waking up in the morning and, first of all, not depending on alcohol, and not being embarrassed or ashamed to know I have a family to take care of. The show’s got to go on.”

Don’t make the mistake of thinking just because you have money that you can’t lose it. No matter how much you have we have seen examples of people with $100s of millions of dollars be left with just a few $1000s in their account. A lot of it has to do simply with not knowing what to do with the money and being young. You give any 19, 20 or even 25 year old person $20, $30, $100 million dollars they are going to need to have some people in place who really care about their well being long term and not just have their hand out.

I hope it works out for Baker and his Starbucks if he does indeed franchise one in the future.

Source: Black Sports Online

 

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