Walker shares plight as cautionary tale
Retired star’s mission: Steering youngsters clear of financial pitfalls
Antoine Walker had it all. At 19 years old, lauded for his role with the “untouchable” NCAA championship-winning Kentucky Wildcats, he was taken with the sixth overall pick in the 1996 NBA draft by the Boston Celtics.
He quickly made his presence felt at the next level, leading the Celtics in scoring (17.5 points per game) and rebounding (9.0 per game) en route to a spot on the NBA’s All-Rookie first team.
Over the next decade, he became an NBA Live cover athlete, a three-time All- Star, an NBA champion and earned more than $108 million in contract money.
By 2010, two years after he played his final NBA game, it was all gone.
The temptations — cars, clothes, pressure to help family and friends — that came with the fame and fortune caught up to Walker, and he was forced to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.
“That process of me playing in the NBA created a very expensive lifestyle for myself,” he told USA TODAY Sports in a recent phone interview.
“I lived a very good lifestyle, where I took care of not only myself ( but) my brothers and sisters. I was the oldest of six, so I watched my mom raise us by herself.
“I have two kids of my own. ... And I brought friends along on the journey as well. I ran with a group of friends, seven or eight of us that grew up in the same neighborhood. I kind of took them on this journey with me throughout the NBA and made sure that they enjoyed the fruits of my labor, too.”
Walker, who would never wear the same suit twice and owned more cars than he could count on one hand, accelerated his financial downfall by diving into real estate.
“In the process of taking care of (friends and family) and myself and creating a lifestyle for myself, seven years into my career I decided I wanted to venture off into real estate,” he said. “Eventually, four years down the line, it ended up going bad. Recession hit, 2007, 2008. ... The downfall, the mistake that I made, was being the personal guarantor of the real estate company and putting up my personal financial portfolio in order to get these loans and this money.”
After spending more than two years in bankruptcy, Walker was given a new lease on life, announcing in 2013 that he was debt-free.
Now, he’s trying to “change the narrative.”
Besides working as an analyst for SEC Network and 120 Sports, Walker serves as a consultant to Morgan Stanley Global Sports and Entertainment, where in 2014 he helped launch a financial education program designed to steer young athletes down the proper path and prevent them from falling victim to the pitfalls he faced when he entered the NBA 21 years ago.
As he travels across the country to share his cautionary tale, Walker’s goal is simple.
“(To) make a really negative story into a positive story,” he said. “But also, to share my story and educate young student-athletes on finances, so when they do make this money, they don’t make the same mistakes that I made and really work hard and try to change this thought process of athletes going broke.”
Walker’s story, and his willingness to publicize it to help others, was part of what sold Drew Hawkins, the managing director and head of Global Sports and Entertainment, on the partnership.
“(I have) a lot of respect, a lot of admiration for Antoine, because you have a host of individuals that have gone through what Antoine went through and basically, they put their head in the sand, didn’t want to talk about it,” Hawkins said. “Antoine got to a point where he wanted to come out and tell his story so that individuals could understand exactly what happened with him.
“But he wanted to do it in a way so that they could benefit, learn from some of the mistakes that he made and then be able to utilize that information so that they would not end up in the same spot.”