Two pro basketball players from the NBA are not only gifted athletes, but smart and motivated enough to try other careers beyond the TV analyst desk.
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Current player Harrison Barnes of the Golden State Warriors is a 22 year old looking ahead to his “encore career” when his pro career ends. After spending time this summer in the USA Basketball’s national-team training camp to perfect his b-ball skills, he headed to Silicon Valley to become an “extern” and hone his business skills, reports Mashable.
Seventh overall pick in the 2012 NBA Draft, Barnes is a young star on social media and could become a social media mogul. He has been shadowing employees at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, California, and attending meetings to learn as much as he can about the industry.
Known for his popular Facebook presence, Barnes is also giving Facebook developers insight into what sports fans want from the site and is enjoying the experience. He told Mashable that he especially enjoys the numerous on-site restaurants on the Facebook campus (featured in this Strange but True!) and vows to try some of the Vietnamese food offerings.
And last year, Strange but True! reported on Boston Celtic Rajon Rondo’s internship with fashion magazine GQ, where he helped with coverage of Fashion Week.
And a former NBA and media superstar, Shaquille O’Neal, is trying a career—in law enforcement. He recently started the application process to become a reserve police officer in Doral, Florida. He needs to pass physical and psychological exams, take required written tests, and pass a background check to land the job.
Christine Baguer, spokesperson for the city of Doral, told the Bleacher Report that O’Neal will not receive any special treatment. “If he passes, he will then have to do everything else to be certified by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, just like any of our other officers, reserve or not reserve.”
This is not his first foray into this field; he previously worked as a reserve officer in Miami and Miami Beach, according to the New York Daily News. The paper reported that, ironically, O’Neal has also impersonated a cop—but don’t worry, it was in the movie “Grown Ups 2”!
It’s nice to see and can send a good message to hopeful high school athletes about the need for fallback careers, but you have to wonder if these opportunities would be available to non-professional athletes.