It’s definitely ironic that this is coming from Antonio Cromartie, BUT I always love to see positive changes in a person … esp. when so many people thought it would be hopeless. The New York Jets cornerback is now mentoring Jets rookies. Yes, you read that right. Who better to teach a lesson than someone who has gone through it?!
Report after the jump…
Via Doug Farrar at Yahoo Sports:
Through most of his first seven years in the NFL. New York Jets cornerback Antonio Cromartie was the league’s poster child for irresponsibility. The 2006 first-round pick of the San Diego Chargersspent, by his own estimation, at least $5 million in his first two NFL seasons, and fathered 10 children with eight different women — so many children, he famously had trouble remembering all their names in one of the 2010 “Hard Knocks” episodes featuring the Jets. In 2011, Cromartie signed a four-year, $32 million contract that had the team thinking of jettisoning him two years later — but with theApril trade of Darrelle Revis, Cromartie is locked in as the Jets’ lockdown cornerback, for better or worse.
What’s unusual about Cromartie’s current situation is that he’s made a lot of positive changes in his life over the last couple years. He has two daughters with his wife, Terricka, and the former profligate spender has put things in order, financially. The same guy who once owned two Dodge Chargers, two BMWs, two Escalades, and a 1965 Chevy Caprice (estimated cost: at least $400,000 total) and had to be talked out of purchasing a $500,000 Lamborghini, is now driving a Prius, per an intriguing story from Newsday’s Bob Glauber. Now, Cromartie counsels younger players, warning them to avoid his past mistakes.
“I want to help others learn from what I did wrong,” he told Glauber. “I tell the young guys, ‘Don’t spend any money the first year and a half of your career. You don’t know what will happen after that. You might be released. You might be hurt. Just save your money.”
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