skip navigation

NFL player who saves nearly 90% of his income teaches a money class at Penn called ‘Life 101’

By Kathleen Elkins, CNBC, 06/17/19, 7:45AM PDT

Share

New York Jets linebacker Brandon Copeland, 27, knows that his football career has an expiration date. “It’s guaranteed football is going to be over one day,” the NFL star told ESPN in 2017.

New York Jets linebacker Brandon Copeland, 27, knows that his football career has an expiration date. “It’s guaranteed football is going to be over one day,” the NFL star told ESPN in 2017.

That’s why Copeland is planning ahead: The Wharton School graduate, who spent two summers interning at the investment bank UBS in college, took an off-season job on Wall Street in 2017. He also has experience flipping houses and opened a real estate company with his wife last year.

His latest side hustle brings him back to the classroom: He’s teaching a financial literacy seminar at his alma mater alongside Dr. Brian Peterson, the director of Penn’s Makuu Black Cultural Center.

The class, which Copeland nicknamed “Life 101” and started this spring semester, covers “the realities of life we all have to deal with,” he says, like how to invest, plan for retirement and build credit. He came up with the idea of the course two years ago, when he and a former teammate were talking about money mistakes and what they wish they’d known in their early 20s.