NFL teaches rookies the ropes at annual symposium

From the time they are drafted at Radio City Music Hall in New York City, NFL rookies are held to a higher standard.

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CARLSBAD, Calif. -- A few thoughts and observations from the site of the NFL's Rookie Symposium, where I am a moderator for a couple of the different panels that are presented to every single player selected in the 2010 draft.

• The NFL makes a sizable investment in their players' future every year. The league really spares no expense in order to make this four-day event as productive as possible. Over 250 players are flown from their NFL cities to large, secluded resort locations and put up for three or four nights as they attend seminars all day ranging from financial education to maintaining one's sexual health and everything in between.

Factor in all of the panelists and NFL employees that are also provided with airfare, accommodations and meals, and it is clear the NFL pays a pretty penny in order to give their latest crop of key employees the best possible chance to succeed in their new profession. It certainly make sense for the league to make this investment in the players who will be among the faces of the sport for years to come. The bigger question is whether or not the players themselves decide to use the four days wisely in order to make an investment in themselves.

• The "no excuse" camp. That's really what the symposium could be re-named if you ask me. The NFL goes out of its way to let these players know not only what the rules are but also how they are expected to conduct themselves from this point forward. No stone is left unturned. If they aren't talking with the rookies about player conduct, they are educating them about their policies concerning both substances of abuse and performance-enhancing drugs.

The one thing a player cannot claim after they leave the symposium is ignorance. If they do, I am not buying it. Though the league can't necessarily walk through every potential situation that could ever come up, the overriding theme of being held to a higher standard because of their unique status in American society more than covers it.

That's why guys like Ben Roethlisberger and Michael Vick have no plausible excuse for their actions. They know better. Or at least should, if they were paying attention at all at the symposium prior to their rookie season.

• Still an experiment bound to go wrong some of the time. There is going to be a player, and likely several players, from this year's draft class that don't heed the advice they've received at the symposium and end up making a poor choice. It could be anything from a bad investment to a driving while intoxicated, but it will happen. It's inevitable. Though the symposium likely is the catalyst that helps many players avoid those situations, it can't save everyone.

That's because no matter what the league does, these are still young men in their early 20s who are going to make bad decisions, like a lot of people their age do. I'd be the first to admit that I made some choices in a couple areas of my life during that time that I would never make now. And I was fortunate enough to be pretty well educated in some of those fields, financial and otherwise, in which I made decisions that I'd like to have back. Luckily, none of my mistakes were significant or lasting.

But I often wonder how many non-football players would make all the right moves given similar circumstances. There is simply no how-to guide on being 22, rich and famous. Can you honestly say you were perfect with your decision-making at that age? And even if you were, do you think you would have been if you walked in the shoes of some of these rookies, with unlimited access to fancy clubs, money to burn and temptations around every corner?

That's no excuse for the guys that mess up. It's just the reality they live in. And that reality, as panelist Irving Fryar so succinctly put it during one of the sessions, is that most of these players are still just boys trapped in men's bodies. Most of them have never really lived on their own, without supervision, let alone paid bills and taken care of all the responsibilities that come with being a tax-paying citizen.

• A past and present brotherhood really does exist. The NFL brings in panelists, ranging from players who successfully navigated the rookie waters last season -- like the Rams' James Laurinaitis and Colts' Austin Collie -- to retired veterans who had fantastic careers like Aeneas Williams and Fryar. Only players like them who have already been through it can truly understand the uniqueness of embarking on an NFL career.

"It really is helpful to get advice from both last year's rookies and guys that had long careers about things not just on the field but off it as well," said Jacksonville Jaguars first-round selection Tyson Alualu, a top 10 pick in the 2010 draft.

Those players come back as panelists primarily because of the sense of obligation they feel to help those who come after them. They are not compensated for their time. Instead, they attend in order to pass the torch to the next group of people charged with continuing to grow the game that has become America's passion.