Tavon Austin was selected eighth overall in the 2013 NFL Draft last month, and the St. Louis Rams rookie says everyone is trying to get at his money now that he’s going to be a millionaire. In fact, the former West Virginia star says he is already being hit up even though he hasn’t received his first NFL paycheck.
“Everybody expects a lot of things from you as far as money,” Austin told the Rams’ website when asked about changes in his life. “Everybody wants to be around you. My phone doesn’t stop ringing now. It feels like they’re counting my bank account now. So that’s probably the hardest thing for me right now, just people.
“I’ve got a lot of cousins now. The whole (city of) Baltimore is my cousin now. We’re going to just try to keep focused and let my mother and all of them handle it.”
Austin is from a tough area in Baltimore, and SI’s Peter King even says some teams were afraid of drafting him because of his past. King says that “some around the league think acquaintances from Austin’s past … could follow him into the NFL.”
We don’t know how all the moochers will affect Austin, but we do know that that is one of the common pitfalls that throws off athletes or causes them to go broke. Hopefully he’ll handle it well. Although based on the way he handled his Twitter upon entering the league, I have my concerns.
Helmet smack to Pro Football Talk
