Former Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Mark Brunell spoke at a MoneyWise Week Summit event Wednesday at Epping Forest Yacht Club.
He started his presentation by declaring "I am a Jaguar."
Brunell, 42, played for 19 seasons in the NFL, including nine seasons with the Jaguars from 1995-2003 in a span that included the team's greatest on-field successes.
Brunell was traded to the Washington Redskins before the 2004 season and spent four years there before signing with the New Orleans Saints for the 2008 season.
He spent two seasons with the Saints, winning his only Super Bowl in the 2009 season, before finishing his career playing for two years with the New York Jets. He retired at the end of the 2011 season.
He was an assistant football coach at Providence High School last year.
In January, Brunell joined the Episcopal School of Jacksonville as head coach of the football program. He and his wife, Stacy, have four children.
Brunell was popular in Jacksonville for his conduct on and off the field.
He created the Brunell Family Foundation in 1997 to improve the quality of life for children and families during a time of life-changing trauma. The brunellfamilyfoundation.com site says the Brunell family is back in Jacksonville and "they look forward to once again make a difference in the community they call home."
Among his other community service efforts, he was an organizer of the Southpoint Community Church.
At the MoneyWise event, Brunell didn't directly discuss the personal Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, which was filed in June 2010 and completed in December 2011.
Financial adviser Ben Wuerffel with Capital Analysts of Jacksonville, Florida, Inc. moderated the panel discussion and also led a one-on-one interview with Brunell.
This is an edited transcript of Wuerffel's interview with Brunell, as well as audience interaction.
What was your most significant moment as a professional athlete?
In my college career, I went to the University of Washington and I started for a year and a half. I started my sophomore year and had a decent year. I blew out my knee, and was a backup my junior year and played the last half of my senior year. I didn't really expect to, one, get drafted, or two, be in the NFL for a long time.
I guess the most significant moment for me was when I made the team in 1993 with the Packers. I did get drafted late, and I was able to make the team, which was great for me. It far exceeded my expectations as far as the NFL was concerned.
In your career you played with some pretty amazing people, of course Brett Favre, Fred Taylor and the list could go on. Was there any one player that stood out for a particular reason?
Absolutely. I played 19 years and over the course of that time in the NFL you meet a lot of interesting people, really, really, really good people, but the one guy that stands out and the reason he does is because this gentleman was the most professional player that I have ever been around. He did everything right. On the field, off the field, in the locker room, in the community, with his family.
This guy was Drew Brees with the New Orleans Saints, and he will go down as one of the best quarterbacks ever. As a starting quarterback in the NFL, there is a lot to manage, and the expectations are very high. He plays at a very high level. He is breaking records left and right, and will continue to break those records.
But he's great in the community. He finds time to really be a part of that team. What I mean by that, he's great in the locker room. He goes to his teammates' functions, other charity functions. We had a tradition on Thursday nights, before Sundays, the offensive linemen and the quarterbacks would all get together. We'd all pick a restaurant in New Orleans. Drew, as busy as he was, he found the time to spend time with his teammates, and really helped our success. A great guy, and I've got a lot of respect for him.
Coming out of college, players generally have spent their whole life dealing with football, and then they get a giant paycheck. Don't give us the name of who, but (what was) the most ridiculous purchase you saw an NFL player make?
We don't have the time.
Maybe highlight one, and talk about how the players are prepared to manage money.
There certainly have been some. It's not as much what the players do coming out of college and what they do with that signing bonus, the guaranteed money that they get off the bat. Sometimes that is in six figures, seven figures, sometimes it's eight. It's pretty significant.
It's not as much what they do, because a bunch of guys go out and buy cars, the Lamborghinis, the big houses, the 20,000-square-foot houses where it's just them. Those things happen.
It's not what they do as much as how they think. These guys are young guys that think that the money will always be coming in. The average NFL career is 3.4 years. The average. It's not a long time.
So these young men have this mentality that they're going to play 10 years, or 15 years, or even further than that. What's difficult for them is that thought process, but also the attention that they get coming out of college, because a lot of these young men, they've been told they're great, unbelievable, have been coddled their whole entire lives.
They have been the best at their position, best on the team, best at the school. They get a lot of attention, whether it's agents, relatives, close family members, friends.
These young men are surrounded many times with people that don't have their best interests at heart. It can be very difficult.
Not everybody, but I would say that a majority of the young men coming out are faced with a lot of distractions, and it's very, very difficult. So it's tough.
They don't have the finance background. They didn't major in econ. They didn't have the resources growing up to the point where they could learn from their parents or family members, where they had an idea, 'I've got all this money, so what do I do with it? What's the smart thing to do?'
Instead they're getting bombarded by agents and financial advisers and people coming out of the woodwork to try to get a piece of what they have. It's really unfortunate.
Not everybody's like that, but a lot of guys are faced with those kind of circumstances.
If you were talking to a young player, these guys coming into money, coming into fame, coming into the spotlight in a big way, how would you turn what you just said into a bit of wisdom?
You know, honestly, with the mistakes I've made with my finances, you would love to go back and redo some things and change your thought process, because to a degree I was one of those young men that came into the NFL, and you'd love to go back and change some things.
What a lot of these guys do, and to a degree I did too, is that they hire their relatives and/or they hire their friends. Or they've got an uncle that knows somebody or they've got a cousin whose dad's an agent. That happens a lot.
And really, these guys are not in any position to make financial decisions, but they are in a position to make good people decisions.
I would love to get in front of every one of these draft picks and just spend some time with them and say, 'OK, who are you talking to? What are your goals? What are you thinking? Do you have a five-year plan? Do you have a 10-year plan? How long do you think you're going to play?'
These are basic questions that are very, very important, because a lot of these young men, they just don't make good people decisions, and it's really unfortunate.
As far as the NFL preparing you, now they do. When I came into the league, not so much. You probably heard, if you're an NFL fan, about the rookie symposium. The draft picks, the guys that just got drafted, a big group of them talk and they get financial education at this rookie symposium. They go through seminar after seminar, to be educated on, 'OK, you've got money. What do you do with it? Who're you going to talk to? Who are you going to surround yourself with?'
It's a lot better than it used to be. It used to be where there really was nothing available for the incoming NFL players, but now there is, which is a good thing.
I had the opportunity to hear you speak at Southpoint Community Church and you gave a story paralleling two different players — you didn't name any names — and how success affected them and how failure affected them. It goes right into what we do for a living, with finances and what people do.
It's interesting that the last two spots I've been, in New Orleans and the New York Jets, it's kind of a 'Tale of Two Cities' in many ways.
Like I said earlier, you come across a lot of interesting individuals. What really defines a person, I believe, not only in the NFL but in business and family, is when a tough time hits, how do they respond? How do they bounce back? How do they dig themselves out of that?
As a quarterback, you're going to get sacked. You're going to throw interceptions. You're going to not make that pass, and to a degree you lose the game for your team. So how do you respond to that?
I've always been really impressed with different individuals. One in particular was a young quarterback that, it was very important that he started right, that you had to give him, at least in the first six plays of the game on offense, you had to say, get some points, get a little momentum, get going because, if he started poorly, the whole game would be bad. It just would not go well. He really to a degree was, not fragile, but that first series was very, very important.
So we would call very basic passes, 5-yard routes, 6-yard routes, a screen, something very simple, just to get him going. And you would stand on the sidelines, and I'd be cheering for my guy out there, just hoping and praying he would get that completion. Just so the rest of the game would work out great.
Another gentleman I was fortunate to work with, you wanted this guy to have adversity early, because when it got tough early on, he responded very, very well.
And I'm not talking about incompletes or interceptions. You wanted this quarterback to get sacked and get hit right in the chin and get knocked down. Because this guy responded. It was also like a wake-up call. 'You're gonna hit me in the chin? I'm gonna throw four touchdown passes today.'
I mentioned not giving any names, but I might have mentioned his name earlier. You're talking about an incredible guy. He would get hit, he would get knocked down, he would have a bad pass, and he'd come to the sidelines, and there was such an intensity in his eyes, it was like, 'OK. Drew's ready to go. It's game time.'
That's part of the reason why he's breaking all these records, touchdown after touchdown. He's got such a tenacity, and he's absolutely brilliant with the ability to throw a football.
I think people are like that, too. You ask yourself this question, I ask myself all the time, how do I respond to adversity? If things go bad, do I just kind of ride it out and maybe it'll go away and things will get better, or when adversity hits you, you get up and get focused, get fired up and go be successful.
Like I said, being around a lot of these guys has been a real good lesson.
It sounds like your definition of success has changed. Early on it might have been one thing and now it's something else. As you see business people who are successful, do you see similiar traits, and how do you define success?
For me, success is honestly having quality relationships in my life. I'm very fortunate that I have a wonderful wife of 22 years now, and our marriage is better than ever. I've got four kids that I'm absolutely crazy about. They're 20, 18, 14 and 11. And they're great. It's fun to see them grow. It'll be interesting to see where God takes their life. I really believe that God has a plan for all of our lives.
I have very good friends. I have a couple of mentors in my life that I hang on every word, that I know love me and care for me and look out for my best interests.
The quality relationships in my life, the people I've surrounded myself with, it wasn't always like that. But I tell you what. I would take what I have now in those relationships more than anything else I've ever had.
I've had the contracts, I've had the big house, the cars, you know, all wonderful. Great. Super. But the place I'm at now, the perspective I have on life … you know, there's nothing wrong with being successful, and having those things. But what's most important?
I am so thankful that there are multiple people in my life where I wake up, and you know what? I'm thrilled to take my boys to school. I'm excited just to get a chance to have coffee with my wife in the morning. That is hard to do. You've got to find time to spend with your spouse, and make it work. It's not easy. But that is success for me, to be at a place in my life where I've got really good people around me and I'm the luckiest guy in the world.
Audience question: When not playing football, what do you like to do outside in nature here in Jacksonville, or anywhere, now that you're ordinary?
Ordinary is very, very nice. I tell you what. In January I took a job. I was fortunate to be hired by the Episcopal School of Jacksonville as the head of the football program, and I work also with the advancement department. We actually have our first spring practice this afternoon. So if I seem a little nervous up here, it's because I am. This is my debut as a head coach on the field with my players, and I am absolutely thrilled about it.
I love the school. I love the faculty, the staff, my coaches, getting to know the young men I'll be coaching, so that is my ordinary right now, and I absolutely love it.
When I got done playing football last year, I wanted three things. I wanted to be in Jacksonville, I wanted to be around young people, and I needed something family friendly. No more traveling.
I'm thankful that I'm back home and know where I'm going to be for the next 20, 30 years, and that's what I was hoping for, and Episcopal fits that perfectly. Coaching high school football is a dream of mine and I'm real proud of it.
Audience question: You've had a great career here, but you actually won your Super Bowl ring at New Orleans. Tell the story about after the game.
In the NFL, what you want more than anything is to get a Super Bowl ring. I wanted one while I started here in Jacksonville, and you're all thinking, 'We wanted to get one, too. Close isn't going to cut it, Brunell.'
So my 17th year in New Orleans, we won the Super Bowl championship. And I thought, how's it going to feel after this game? What's it going to be like? You see the confetti, you see guys jumping on each other, a bunch of man-hugs out there, grown men crying, and you know what? That's exactly what happened.
What was really special to me was the Saints allowed you to have two people come on the field after the game if you win. I asked my father and my wife, Stacy, to come on the field with me. It was interesting because I didn't play a whole lot, I held, I was backup, and Drew never got hurt. I started one game, and that was ugly.
After the (Super Bowl) game, my dad comes on the field. I could not have imagined feeling more excited, and at least at that moment, more fulfilled in a football career.
I saw my dad, and I'm going to get emotional right here. He's walking toward me and we both just started weeping. Because my dad was in my life from Day One. He was in everything. He was my coach. We had a great relationship, and we were going through this whole process together, and we finally got to be a part of a championship. We embraced, and I've got some pictures of two grown men with tears running down their eyes, and it was a really special moment.
Audience question: I've enjoyed you on the radio. Do you think you're going to go back there again?
I'm actually talking with the Jaguars about doing a Thursday night show this fall, and I might be able to do some TV with them too.
I want to do something with the Jaguars. That is my team. I feel close to it. I love the organization from top to bottom. To be a part of that, on the media side or whatever, I'm thrilled about that. So those are possibilities for me.
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