Exiting the big leagues and navigating a post-playing career is a difficult transition for any athlete, but for former NFL linebacker Carl Banks, the planning process started even before he went pro.
“Michigan State during the years that I was there, we were awful,” he said of his college playing days, “so I didn’t even know if I was going to be drafted by the NFL.”
Banks earned his degree in communications from the East Lansing school and figured he would use it to write commercials or start an agency. Instead, the New York Giants drafted him as the third pick in 1984, and he went on to win two Super Bowls with the team during a 12-year NFL career that also included stints with Washington and Cleveland.
Banks always kept in mind that he would have only a limited number of years as a professional athlete and started pursuing his other interests, particularly fashion , while he was still playing. He successfully pitched a “big and tall” clothing brand to Foot Locker coming off of his first Super Bowl championship, in 1987, and his efforts eventually led to a deal with the G-III Apparel Group, where he still works today as president of the company’s sports division.
The firm is based in Midtown South with about 4,600 employees, and it had about $3.1 billion worth of sales for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2024, according to SEC filings.
“I always wanted to be this dual threat, and I had a really good example of that with Earvin ‘Magic’ Johnson,” Banks said. “He had started to pursue a lot of his interests while he was an L.A. Laker, and I looked at that and I’m like, yeah, I think that’s the way to go.”
Banks has multiple focuses at G-III, ranging from sales and marketing to helping the company grow. His main project right now is pushing for a big revival of Starter jackets. G-III is the exclusive licensee in the U.S., Canada and Mexico for the brand, whose apparel features the logos of many professional football, baseball, basketball and hockey teams. Starter first burst onto the football scene in the ’80s, when Banks himself was a spokesman for the brand, and he is trying to re-create some of the magic from its initial wave of popularity.
“If you ask anybody about a Starter jacket, they’ve got a Starter story for you,” he said. “In every single American sport, Starter was a part of it, and they were a part of every championship.”
Banks also has not completely left the NFL world, as he still works for the Giants as part of their media and broadcast team. He previously worked on player development for the New York Jets as well. Although he can see the appeal of becoming a coach, he thinks his interests are too varied for him to fully commit to such a notoriously demanding job.
But Banks still misses certain aspects of the game and says nothing can compare to the rush of playing. However, he has enjoyed a smooth move from football to business overall, something he mainly attributes to having years’ worth of preparation time.
“There are a lot of things that you miss—the camaraderie, the routine of seeing people in practice—but I was prepared for that because I had about 10 years of getting ready,” he said. “People ask me which is tougher: football or fashion? I’m like, ‘Fashion because there are no referees.'”
Eddie Small , 2024-04-18 12:03:03
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