Athlete CEO #035: Advice All Pro Athletes Need | Zach Miller

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Episode Notes

Former NFL TE and Super Bowl Champion Zach Miller knows firsthand how unprepared athletes are for money management and even more unprepared to enter the workforce after their playing careers. That’s why he’s decided to pursue wealth management as a career after the NFL. His goal is to help equip athletes with the same knowledge he wished he had when he played. Many in the financial business have given up on pro athletes, that’s why Zach Miller has not.

Guest: Zach Miller

Twitter: twitter.com/ZachMiller86

1:52

What you can’t google about Zach Miller when it comes to his deciding on Arizona State for college, and his path to the NFL and becoming a Super Bowl champion

4:59

The depression he experienced after retiring from the NFL and how he figured out what he was going to do next. 

Zach Miller: “You need to change your identity. Every NFL player will experience this because you can’t play forever, the sooner you can transition into your next career, the better.”

7:35

Every athlete goes through it, but when did Zach first realize football was a business? 

Zach Miller: “After I had outplayed my rookie contract with the Raiders, they kept telling me to be patient: ‘you’ll be rewarded, you’ll be rewarded,’ and then free agency hits and the Raiders weren’t there with the offer.”

10:45

One thing many players don’t realize is all of the resources and benefits they have at their disposal through the NFL Player’s Association.

14:20

The system is really set up to fail professional athletes, especially when they’re young and first coming into the league, whether it be the NFL, NBA or MLB.

Zach Miller: “When you come into the NFL you are 21-22 years old, it’s unrealistic to think that these guys, and I’m including myself, I was financially illiterate. You haven’t experienced or worked long enough to know the differences between the right people to hire and evaluating an advisor or agent.” 

20:30

The main issue when it comes to pro athletes and good investment and financial advice is that once you reach a certain amount of wealth there are certain professionals you need to speak with because the point of entry for financial advisors is so low.

Zach Miller: “You need an expert that specializes in you and in what you do.”

22:30

Zach interviewed with many other financial advising firms or RIAs and he asked them point blank why they didn’t represent or help professional athletes.

Zach Miller: NFL guys will just spend all their money. You’ll do all this work and they won’t have any money left. I just reject that opinion. I don’t think that’s true. If you are doing good work and giving the best advice you can actually help a ton of NFL guys. I want to give the kind of advice I wish I had as a young player.” 

25:26

Professional athletes in NFL, MLB, NHL and NBA need their financial advisors to do so much more than investment. There are so many components to the financial side for professional athletes beyond investment.

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+ Read the Transcript

Erik Averill (00:04):

Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of The Athlete CEO Podcast. I'm your host, Erik Averill, alongside my brother and cohost, Brandon Averill, and we have a really fun interview/conversation today for you as the audience. We get an opportunity to have a chat with a former Super Bowl champion. I would say a member of the greatest collegiate university of Arizona State. As a former and a fellow Sun Devil, excited to have this conversation. But really, a fascinating conversation with someone who went from being one of the best in the world, on the grid iron, to now pursuing a career in the financial space. And with that introduction, let's welcome Zach Miller to the podcast. Zach, thanks for being here.

Zach Miller (00:54):

Yeah. Thanks, Erik. Thanks, Brandon. I'm thrilled to do this.

Erik Averill (00:59):

I know we're probably going to get some pushback from Brandon and being a UCLA Bruin and competitor of ours, but I'd love, Zach, for you to orient our audience a little bit. Maybe just give a little background of your football career, a snapshot, maybe drop in a few things that they just can't find about you on Google, if you don't mind.

Zach Miller (01:23):

Yeah. So, I grew up in Phoenix, Arizona a Sun Devil fan. I went to Sun Devil games as a kid and watched Pat Tillman and Jake Plumber and all the ASU greats, so I always wanted to be a sun devil. So, I was a highly recruited tight end in high school, but I always knew I wanted to stay home and play for the Sun Devils. So, I actually did take a official visit to UCLA, did not get commit there. Great decision. Got a chance to play under coach Dirk Koetter for the Sun Devils and ran a pro-style offense and allowed me to showcase what I could do. When it became clear that I was going to be able to be drafted in the NFL, it was a dream come true for me because that's what I wanted to do my whole life. My whole life was to be the best I could be at my position, the best tight end in high school, the best tight end in college.

Zach Miller (02:19):

And then, once I got to the pros, that was always my goal. I've always been competitive. I was a second round draft pick after three years at ASU, so I left school early to go to the NFL. Second round draft pick for the Oakland Raiders, spent four years there, was able to make the Pro Bowl, actually, my last year as a Raider. That was one of my goals, make the Pro Bowl try to be recognized as the best. We didn't have a lot of team success in Oakland, so as a free agent, after the lockout season, I signed with the Seahawks and Pete Carroll, who recruited me in high school, too, finally got me on his team. So, that was cool to go up to the Pacific Northwest and just have tremendous team success and beyond some of the best football teams, the best teams in general, I've ever been on, with amazing players, amazing coaches, the organization. Everything was done the right way. The culture was phenomenal. Couldn't be more proud of my career, my four years in Seattle.

Zach Miller (03:33):

Unfortunately, of course, with way it goes in pro sports, especially football is, I had an ankle surgery in 2014 that ended my season early that year, and then ended up getting ankle reconstruction surgery on my ligaments in my ankle to try to fix an injury that was going on in there. So, that effectively ended my career after that. Once I became a free agent and the Seattle Seahawks released me, my agent would send teams my operational report, and you wouldn't hear back. So, your injuries not good when that happens. So, like anyone else, you know you can't play in the NFL forever. They tell you that from day one, NFL, not for long. And then, you realize when it happens that...

Zach Miller (04:31):

I know every player goes through this, I've talked to so many former players, there's kind of a depression type experience that everyone goes through when you have to realize like, "You're not a football player, you're not an NFL player anymore. You need to either do something else, you need to change your identity" And every NFL player will experience this because you can't play forever, so the sooner you can transition into the next part of your career, the better, and for me, it was huge. I spent some time and luckily made enough money when I was playing that I didn't have to rush.

Zach Miller (05:13):

I decided to go back to Arizona State and finished my degree. And it was huge for me because I had a lot of credits that I had to get done, so it took two years to do that. And in that time, it gave me time to figure out, what do I want to do with the next stage of my life? I don't want to just be known as a football player, as just an NFL guy, as just a Super Bowl champion. I wanted to be known for more than that. I've always loved finances and investments, and I saw what it needed to be done out there, and I want to be a part of a solution for so many of these players that aren't getting good advice. So, that's how I'm here now and excited to be a part of some change.

Erik Averill (06:01):

Yeah. Well, I really appreciate a lot of that detail. I think you have so many important and unique experiences as a professional athlete to be a very high draft pick to go through the free agent market, to actually go through a lockout, to sign a long-term contract, to have a huge injury. You really have experienced so many of the mile markers or the what ifs of a professional career. One of the things that I'd love to just hear your thought process as you're talking to fellow professional athletes maybe be at the beginning of their career or they're towards the end of it, is just talk about when did you realize it was a business? Yeah. A business. And then, second, what point of your career did you realize like, "Oh, I've got to actually take ownership of making these business decisions. It's not just my agent," or other people around you. I'd love to hear your input on that.

Zach Miller (07:06):

Yeah. It was a crystal clear moment for me that it was a business when... It was early in my career, my mentor, the older tight end that I got when I got to Oakland, he was the veteran of the Tight End Room. We were going out to training camp practice, and I gotten stretch lines and he just wasn't there in his normal spot. He wasn't there. My heart sank. I just immediately knew that he's gone. They cut him. And just like that, he's there one day and then his spot was empty in stretch line the next day. I mean, every player who plays in the NFL, it happens. You realize it's a business, you realize that it's going to end soon, everyone gets cut or some, very few, lucky ones get to retire on their own terms. But yeah, that was a huge eye opening moment.

Zach Miller (08:06):

And there was a second one. When I became a free agent, and after I had outplayed my rookie contract with the Raiders, they kept telling me to be patient, "You'll get rewarded, you'll get rewarded. Just finish out your contract. We're going to reward you. Just be the team guy, keep playing. In the end, you'll be rewarded." And then, the period before free agency comes and the Raiders weren't there with the offer. So, I will caution some guys that there's a reason some guys sit out. I know fans always like to say that the guy should just play and take the money and play, but you're not going to get your value if you don't stick up for what you're worth and fight what you're worth. And so, that's how I ended up in free agency after my time in Oakland.

Brandon Averill (09:04):

I think that's really interesting, Zach. I mean, I know on your earlier point, the transition's just kind of crazy. I know I went through it. Erik, I'm sure, could speak to how he transitioned out of the game. We all go through that depression moment and stuff, so I appreciate you sharing that. I think the other thing on the business side, too, is I know you are also a player rep and what an honor that is obviously for your teammates to elect you to that. And maybe people outside the locker room don't know all what that means, but as somebody that the rest of the team is coming to, you realized it's a business, everybody realizes it's a business, but it's still so few people, at least in our experience on the baseball side, I think take the bull by the horns and treat it as a business. I'd love just for you to share with all of us your experience as the player rep, the in-between, how'd you help players to navigate those waters?

Zach Miller (10:05):

Yeah. As being a player rep, you're elected by your teammates, so I felt honored to be elected by the guys in Oakland, the guys in Seattle that elected me. And I felt a responsibility to those players that when you're doing the meetings and when you're doing all the work that comes along with being the rep, that you're trying to educate the guys on their benefits and all the recourse they have as far as injury grievances or the things that they should be taking advantage of that the NFLPA provides for them while they're playing. And then, hopefully, they know about those things as they transition to their post-career because there's so many benefits out there that the NFLPA has done a good job of negotiating.

Zach Miller (10:58):

And then, sometimes, guys either don't use them or they don't know about them, and so, for me, it was always making sure guys... representing your team. And when it came to the lockout in 2011 off season, we were locked out by the NFL owners, my job was to make sure that my team's voice was heard in our negotiation. So, I would communicate with all the guys on my team, see what the issues were, see what mattered to them in the next collective bargaining agreement, because those things, especially this last one that just got past, they last 10 years at a time now, so the last two agreements have been 10 years so that's 10 years you're playing under whatever rules you negotiate with the owners. And the owners are very tough negotiators, they have very highly paid lawyers, so you have to fight for everything you can get.

Zach Miller (11:51):

And luckily, we did fight for some really good quality of life type... whether it's the benefits, but also, no more than two days during practice, which helps cut down on some of the injuries and some of the long-term effects of football, which... Football as a contact sport, and you're basically in a car accident every Sunday, each year you play you're taking years off your life, so you better be maximizing the amount you make and then keeping it so that you can give yourself the opportunity to succeed the rest of your life, not just during your time in the NFL.

Brandon Averill (12:35):

Yeah. No, I mean, that's huge, and I'm sure those guys elected you for a reason and just hearing their responsibility you took upon that decision and making sure that they're educated. And I think that's a big thing I appreciate about you, and it's so important to Erik and I, is the education. I know Erik and I's experience with some NFL guys, we've been just overly impressed by the intention and the desire to be educated. It's been really great to see.

Brandon Averill (13:11):

What becomes really sad quickly, though, is realizing that, unfortunately, there isn't a lot of education there, there aren't a lot of people there to really want to pour into them. And even guys that have made all the right decisions, they've hired, supposedly, the right agent, they've hired a financial person, they've hired an accountant, et cetera, et cetera. But when you start to peel back the layers, unfortunately, they think they're making all the right decisions, but they're not making good decisions because they just don't have the education for it. So, I know the NFL's tried, put some programs in place, but I don't know. What's your take on that, and how willing are guys to be educated? What was your experience like on that?

Zach Miller (14:04):

I think that it's unrealistic to think that when you come in the NFL, you're 21 or 22 years old. I think it's unrealistic to think that these guys are able to... and I was included. I was financially illiterate to the point where you haven't experienced or worked long enough to know the differences between who's the right people to hire? How do you get a financial advisor? How do you evaluate an agent? You're just not old enough, you don't have enough life experience, and you hope that you pick the right one. And I think that the system, it's set up to fail for a lot of NFL guys and other pro athletes, because from a players point of view, all financial advisors seem the same, and that couldn't be further from the truth. The reality is that the financial advisor label can apply to anyone from insurance to major brokerages, RIAs. It's not fair to the athlete that's expected to make these kinds of decisions, that even older, smart business people either don't know about or make the wrong decisions sometimes, too.

Zach Miller (15:34):

So, I think that's my goal, is to educate and to bring what I think is the right model and the right kind of advice to professional athletes, because I know what works, I know how you need to service the athlete, and I just want to be a part of what helps make the whole industry better, basically, by providing the right kind of advice and the right kind of service to the athletes that need it. They don't know. It's too tough out there to tell the difference when you're getting pitched and sold by people that are pushing products or they have conflict of interests. So, I will say that, from choosing the right people at a young age, it's very tough to do.

Brandon Averill (16:31):

Yeah. That makes a lot of sense. I mean, I don't think it's a surprise to anybody probably listening to this that knows Erik and I or the history of our company, but it's what we found 10 years ago. Well, more than 10 years ago now. And that's just the system, especially the big wirehouses, the investment only people, it's just a bad system to give advice, especially for the athlete. I mean, you got to take tax considerations into account first and foremost. You can't do that at those firms. So, I think we were, a while ago, very much in the same spot you are now, and I think another thing that binds us, and we've been so impressed getting to know you and learning about, is that you didn't just run out there and join some company and become a salesman, you decided on your own to become an expert and enrolled in the certified financial planning designation program, pass the test, before you even went to work anywhere. So, I think you're definitely putting your money where your mouth is, and that's a huge thing.

Brandon Averill (17:38):

And I think for players, even if it's not into the financial industry, I think just that initiative. Right? I'd love to hear a little bit how you about your next steps and what led to that decision. I know you were impacted and you have a passion for the industry, but it's a pretty advanced move to say, and took some real initiative, to say, "Hey, you know what? I'm just going to go do this." I'd love to hear about your thought process there.

Zach Miller (18:07):

Yeah. So, I'm the type of person that I really, I don't want to tell anyone something or advise them or anything without myself having the knowledge and knowing the most I can about a topic, because I feel like just giving an opinion when you don't have the details and the nuance, I don't think that helps anybody. And so, I wanted to learn, I wanted to go back and get my finance undergrad and learn as much as I could about investments and read every article, read all the finance books, the investment books, because I don't think enough people do it the right way. I think having young people come in and just immediately start selling, I think is the wrong business model for the financial services industry. And I think that the way the wirehouses do it, I don't think they provide enough service, especially for athletes, but really for all people, because they're not providing enough service to their clients.

Zach Miller (19:16):

So, I had an advisor at Merrill Lynch. My dad tried to help with my investments, and so in me hiring a guy at Merrill Lynch, and then having a separate CPA do taxes, I thought I was actually doing the right thing. I was under the impression that I had all of my bases covered, and so I didn't even know that... I didn't know what the CFP designation was until I was at ASU, and one of my professors was a CFP and talked about the certification and the process and how much goes into that. I just think that the standard in the financial services industry, to enter it, it's all you have to pass is a series 65 or a seven and you can just start giving financial advice, I think is just too low a bar. I really think that, especially once you get a certain amount of wealth, there's problems that need solutions from well-educated, experienced professionals that can handle it, and just segmenting your financial advice to only investments is not good enough.

Zach Miller (20:37):

And I think that the wirehouses, over the longterm, will continue to lose advisors to the RIA space, and I think it's the future of financial advice. It's more financial planning. Investments as a part of that, but it's one part. You have to incorporate all the other aspects of whether it's estate planning, whether it's making sure your insurance, you're covered on all the different types of risk, making sure that if you want to fund your kid's college, you're doing it the right way, and incorporating all that into a plan that gets evaluated by not just one guy... Just having one guy is not going to get it done either. You need an expert that specializes in you, in what they do, whether that's a tax specialist on the team or an investment specialist or investment committee.

Zach Miller (21:33):

One thing I will say about a lot of them RIAs, because I interviewed at quite a few other IRAs before I started here and had some other job offers, and I know I asked them point blank, I asked these owners, and these are some massive IRAs, huge amount of AUM, why don't they try to help athletes. And they told me to not waste my time. They told me that's not worth it, that you won't make any money because athletes, especially NFL, they said some other sports were better, but they said NFL guys will just spend all their money. You're going to do all this work and then they won't have any money left. And I just reject that opinion, and I don't think that's true. I think that if you're doing good work and you are giving the best advice, you can actually help a ton of NFL guys.

Zach Miller (22:32):

And I want to be able to give the kind of advice that I wish I had as a young player, as a 20, 21 year old, when I was drafted. That's my passion, and that's what I use to do guide me in trying to improve myself and eventually become a lead advisor. Because I didn't want to just jump in. There's plenty of other former NFL guys that they just jumped right in and they're lead advisor and they're just trying to go find clients. But I don't think that's the right way to do it. I think you need to learn from the ground up. I'm an associate here. I believe that you have to learn through doing, you have to learn through doing all the things that...

Zach Miller (23:14):

And maybe they're not always fun all the time, but you know what? Guess what? Training camp's not fun all the time either. You have to do the work and you have to put in the effort to prove yourself into build those skills and to build those competencies. You don't just get them by being a former NFL player, and just having the experience of being a former NFL player is not enough. You need to go get the designations, go get the certifications. It can be done. So, I just challenge anyone that advises athletes to make sure that you're always continuously learning, progressing, because I mean, that's what I did in football. You just try to get a little better each day. Here, I'm just trying to help all of my clients a little bit each day.

Erik Averill (24:07):

I love hearing the passion that you're sharing and just even the approach that you had. Like you said, it's transferring the way that you approached your professional career on the field is how you're going to approach your career in the financial industry. One of the things I'd love to hear you talk about, as you always said, on the grid iron, if you didn't perform your job, they would bench you. Can you talk about, as a client, what expectations you should hold your advisor to?

Zach Miller (24:41):

I think the biggest thing is just follow through. If you're a client and your advisor says they're going to do something, and then it just either doesn't get done or you're not getting communication, yeah, that's not good enough. That's the biggest one, for sure. But also, they need to provide more service than just investments. Just doing investments is not enough for the athlete because they have so much of their income is front loaded. They're going to have tax issues, which creates planning opportunities for the client. And incorporating that altogether is, I think, the model that best works for athletes. And obviously, you guys know more than me whether that's the best model because you guys have been doing it now for so long, but from my point of view, the client should expect more from a financial advisor. I don't even like using that term because a financial advisor has such a bad connotation now. I'd rather call it financial planner or wealth manager or wealth advisor or something along those lines, because anyone can call themselves a financial advisor and they're not actually providing very much value.

Brandon Averill (26:01):

I think that's huge, Zach. I mean, I think you're learning with us. I mean, we definitely have struck the financial advisor term from our language for all those reasons. It doesn't describe what somebody should really be looking for. And as we come towards a close here, I want to be respectful of time, one question we'd like to leave with is just, if you had a few minutes with a current NFL guy, that 21 year old walking out on the field to take his spot in the stretch line, and he turned to you and asked, "What's the absolute necessity, before coach blows the whistle and we have to stop talking?" If I'm trying to get some advice from a senior player, from a vet, what are you going to tell them?

Zach Miller (26:53):

I think the biggest thing is that you're on that field for a reason. You can only control what you do, how you play, you can't control all the other players on the field. You can't control outside circumstances. Trust in the ability that you have, trust in the fact that you wouldn't be in the position you're in if people didn't think highly of you. So, don't make anything up, just do your job, do what you've done your whole life as a player, and performance will follow.

Brandon Averill (27:34):

That's great. I think anybody that heeds that wisdom is probably going to be in a really good spot. So, yeah, Zach, we've enjoyed this. Obviously, it's been a lot of fun. I'm sure we'll do it again in the future, and hopefully, everybody that's listening to this took something away, whether you're an NFL guy getting your career started, finishing up, or even if you're a business owner, just what it takes to be competitive at such an elite level. So, with that, we encourage you, if you'd like to hear a little bit more, head on over to the podcast page. You can find us at Athlete CEO on iTunes or anywhere else that you listen to podcasts. And with that, we just like to always remind everybody, stay humble, stay hungry, and always be a pro.

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