Philadelphia Eagles cornerback C.J. Gardner-Johnson had an eventful weekend full of highs and lows. On Saturday night, his team walloped the New York Giants, 38-7, to advance to the NFC Championship Game. But on Monday, days after his team came within one win of a trip to the Super Bowl, Gardner-Johnson went on social media to report that someone had stolen his car.
The drama didn’t end there, however. When fans discovered that the car in question was a Kia, Twitter erupted at the thought of a professional athlete driving something other than a luxury brand car. Newsweek chronicled some of the online mocking, from questions like “Why he got a Kia in the first place?” to another commenting that “you’re that good of a player and you got a d— Kia you need it to be stolen.”
As a longtime Eagles fan, this observer might have a bias toward Gardner-Johnson. But the player’s choice of vehicle seems entirely sensible — one worthy of praise rather than social media trolling.
Broke Athletes
Numerous publications, including a 2009 Sports Illustrated article and a 2012 ESPN “30 for 30” documentary, have chronicled all the ways in which professional athletes often find themselves in financial difficulty soon after ending their careers. The Sports Illustrated piece found that 78 percent of NFL athletes find themselves bankrupt, or in financial distress, within two years of retirement, and that 60 percent of NBA stars end up in a similar position within five years of ending their
