When You're Caught in the Cycle of Poverty, Can Striking It Rich Even Save You?

I was listening to a segment on NPR's show "All Things Considered" the other day that described how quickly after retiring, many pro-athletes go broke. A recent study showed that 78% of former NFL athletes have gone bankrupt within two years of retiring, which came to me as a shock. I mean, I always knew that a couple of these stars go over the top and get these extravagant houses featured on MTV shows like "cribs", but I didn't realize it was that much of a pandemic! These men are making upwards of a million dollars a year-the idea of spending that much money that fast is just absurd to me.
Today in class we talked about the idea of the "cycle of poverty" and I really saw a strong connection between that and this growing issue among athletes. More often then not, these outstanding athletes come from low socioeconomic standards, which makes the jump from living a normal, working-class life to having that much wealth that much bigger of a shock. These athletes are not used to managing that much money, and therefore are often irresponsible with it-treating it as if it were a bottomless fountain of cash and making ridiculous purchases like that 5th Lamborghini they've always wanted. It's really sad to consider, but this is most likely a result of their past standard of living. Since they never had money, they never learned how to manage it and therefore lose it quickly. It's depressing to think that this cycle drags people back into poverty, even if they have managed to somehow crawl out of it.