Joey Porter, a seventh-year Pro Bowl linebacker for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and Andrew Bogut, the potential No. 1 pick in the NBA draft, have little in common – except having played for Mountain West Conference schools with antiquated locker rooms.
That was enough to spur them to make six-figure pledges to their alma maters, a rarity for pro athletes, according to agents and financial managers.
Porter recently gave CSU $200,000 to underwrite half the cost of a new football locker room. The day he announced he would turn pro, Bogut stunned Utah athletic director Chris Hill with a $125,000 commitment to be used to build a new basketball locker room.
“I didn’t realize how much this stuff plays into recruiting,” said Porter, who had discussed the project for two years with CSU alum and financial manager Terry Nugent as well as Rams coach Sonny Lubick.
“Joey would give his left arm for Sonny,” said Nugent, a vice president with UBS Financial Services who manages portfolios for 25 current and former NFL players. “A lot of these players give of their time and sports memorabilia. Writing a big check you don’t hear of that often for a guy like Joey.”
When agent David Bauman prepped Bogut for his draft announcement, he gave the standard speech about the importance of giving back to the community. “It’s not all about millionaires driving around in Hummers,” he told Bogut.
Bogut suggested making a donation to a new locker room, in addition to setting up charities in his future NBA city, Salt Lake City, his native Australia and his parents’ native Croatia.
“He said, ‘I love Coach (Ray Giacoletti), I want to help him recruiting. When he brings in high school players to look at our locker room, it’s embarrassing,”‘ Bauman recalled.
Bogut’s agent represents the European division for SFX Basketball. His clients often set up charities for orphanages in Eastern Europe.
But ask a player about helping the alma mater, and Bauman said they aren’t always so charitable.
“The response is laughter,” he said. “They say, ‘Duke doesn’t need the money; they’ve got Coach K and a big endowment.”‘
Huge pro salaries are often offset by the fleeting nature of pro careers.
“Ever since I took on Joey as a client, I always talked about how can we give back,” Nugent said. “We knew it wouldn’t be until the second (pro) contract.”
Porter, who signed a six-year, $22.5 million deal in 2002, doesn’t begrudge athletes who choose not to give something back.
“It’s not something I would ask them to do,” he said.
And schools often ask for money but haven’t done a good job of continuing a relationship with former players.
Utah has had several high draft picks in recent years, but Hill admits, “We have not been very aggressive with our former athletes. Many times they aren’t ready to contribute until their families grow up a little bit. When you are that young and have a lot of money, you don’t know how long it will last.”
As for Utah’s other No. 1 pick, quarterback Alex Smith, Hill said, “I’m sure some day Alex will step forward.”
Boulder-based attorney and agent Jack Mills has a large clientele of former area college players and Broncos, and said the only donation he could recall was former CU linebacker Ted Johnson helping his old high school in California with a new weight room.
“A lot of money goes to (cars and extravagances), but a lot is pure investments,” Mills said. “The second contract is the first money they see because they have so many needs and wants stored up.”
Sometimes it takes a special relationship between a player and coach to make a player want to give back. That was the case with Bogut, who wanted to repay Giacoletti for keeping his word about the Utes running their offense through him. Giacoletti traveled to Australia and Athens, at the Olympics, last year to meet with Bogut after he was named to the Utah job.
Porter and Lubick remained close after Porter’s last CSU season in 1998. Two years ago, when Porter was shot at a party in Denver after the CU-CSU game, Lubick and his wife, Carol Jo, were at Porter’s bedside in the hospital the next day.
Sometimes a player’s heart is in the right place, but the financial balance sheets are blank.
“Absolutely, if I have half the career Joey has I’d love to do something,” said former CSU tight end Joel Dreessen, chosen in the sixth round this spring by the New York Jets.
Natalie Meisler can be reached at 303-820-1295 or nmeisler@denverpost.com.
