Building up the Stock in a “Flawed” Player Almost every child has had a dream of being a famous athlete or sports superstar, but only a small percentage actually achieves this dream. For the talented lucky few who do make it into college sports and then on to the Pros, sometimes a wrong choice – abusing drugs or alcohol – can swiftly end the dream. A college football player spends his entire college career “building his stock” for the NFL draft. A single draft position can mean thousands of dollars to the player. The goal is obviously to be drafted as high as possible by a NFL franchise. If a player fails a random drug test or gets arrested for a DUI or a drug related offense it can cause his draft stock to rapidly fall. Often times, repeat offenders don’t get drafted at all and become Undrafted Free Agents. This makes it extremely tough to make an NFL team. Up until recently, there wasn’t many alternatives for the athlete to regain his “draft stock” other than the standard meetings and Substance Abuse classes. Now the player can work “hand in hand” with a sober coach and his agent to show potential NFL teams that they are willing to put in the Day to Day effort and work that it takes to maintain a sober life. NFL teams are starting to listen to the sober coach more and more and are putting faith in those recovering athletes who have brought on a sober coach and implemented a plan to stay clean. In the past 2 years, more than 10 top NFL prospects have greatly repaired their draft stock by hiring on an addictions coach and taking his plan to the team interviews during the draft process to address the negative issue before it gets addressed by the teams interested. Protecting draft stock should be looked at like protecting your wallet left on the kitchen table. Every slip in the draft means thousands of dollars lost. On the reverse, each jump up the board adds to the contract greatly and NFL teams are willing to invest more into those “flawed” players who have a set plan in place with an addictions/sober coach.