You may not have heard of Junior Bridgeman, but he was an NBA player for 12 years for the Milwaukee Bucks and Los Angeles Clippers.
Like all players, he eventually retired. But unlike most players, who, according to Sports Illustrated, go broke within 5 years after retiring, Bridgeman became much more successful after retirement than he was during his years playing basketball, building a $400 million fast food empire.
Success as an athlete
Bridgeman was born in 1953 into a blue collar family in East Chicago. He played basketball in high school and played guard and forward during college at the University of Louisville. After college, he was picked in the first round of the 1975 NBA Draft by the Los Angeles Lakers, but was immediately traded to the Milwaukee Bucks for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. His athletic career was uneventful, but it was what he did after retiring that was so significant.
