[
THE SCOOP] lifestyles
Show Me the Passion
From mac-and-cheese dinners to making millionaires, sports agent Peter Schaffer has always kept lacrosse close
P
eter Schaffer has been a certifi ed NFL agent for more than 25 years. He has negotiated more than a billion
dollars worth of contracts, including a deal in 1997 that made future Hall of Fame running back Barry Sanders the then-highest paid player in NFL history.
Schaffer’s fi rm, Authentic Athletix, represents many NFL players, plus media personalities, golfers, baseball and hockey players. Even with all that, Schaffer, a former Franklin & Marshall lacrosse player and Adelphi assistant in the 1980s, still fi nds time to play and support the game he loves.
How did you become a sports agent?
After graduating from Franklin & Marshall in 1984, I went to Brooklyn Law School and, after that, got a job at a litigation fi rm in Colorado. Then I just decided to follow my passion. It was 1988. I was single, 25 years old and fortunately for me, I liked eating Kraft macaroni and cheese. I didn’t mind it at four- for-a-dollar, eating seven days a week. I decided I was going to work my tail off as a lawyer to fund this thing. As opposed to taking the money I would get from being a lawyer, and living high
30 LACROSSE MAGAZINE May 2014>> A Publication of US Lacrosse
on the hog, I reinvested in my future. I have a hundred different recipes that I could give you for how to make Kraft macaroni and cheese.
What entails a typical day? The thing about being a sports agent is you never know. Whether it’s a contract, a negotiation, a player needing surgery, a player wanting to buy a house, the mother of a player’s child dropping a maternity action, getting a loan — you just never know what you have to deal with on a daily basis. To be a successful agent, you have to have a huge Rolodex and the ability to deal with issues as they come. With free agency, for example, it started March 15. Teams start calling at noon Eastern. You try to fi nd the best situation, best contract for your players. The phones ring. You’ve got two cell phones, email set up, computers, two TVs. It’s sort of like air traffi c control. You’re trying to land all these planes.
Bill Belichick is football’s famous lacrosse fan. What’s your relationship with him? He’s very reluctant to talk football, with anybody. That’s because he’s so intelligent and he has so many secrets. But if you really want to have a conversation with him, he’ll talk lacrosse all day: the growth of the game, the strategy of the game, all kinds of stuff. That’s really what our relationship is based on, lacrosse. We’re both in the same place because of football, but the conversation is always about lacrosse. I love
©PETER SCHAFFER
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