Keegan Murray Can Learn A Thing Or Two From My Uncle About Rookie Duties

Keegan Murray was forced to buy $300 worth of Chic-Fil-A before every away game as part of his rookie duties. Nothing really jaw dropping about that. 41 games * 300 is $12,300 He made 8 million and change this year. That $12,300 bill is peanuts to him. Is it funny they still make rookies do stuff like this ? Yes. Is it a funny visual of him holding all the bags, and potentially juggling 14 soft drinks out to his car. Sure, but other than a quick laugh there's not much to the story. 

What there is plenty of is advice. Particularly from one of the wisest people I know ... my Uncle. My uncle is one of the savviest hardworking guys I know. After his day job of manual labor, he would run a restaurant at night to help his family with a great living. Done this for a ton of years, before that was working in restaurants etc. Always working hard. Lot of credit to him for that, huge admiration for a guy busting his hump day in and day out. 

I mentioned that manual labor job. One of my favorite stories was when he was an apprentice , because it goes to show how savvy he was, and that street smarts can go a long way. The way the story goes is he was assigned to a project of construction for what he assumed would be 6 months or so. As the low man on the totem pole, part of his responsibilities was to go get the breakfast and coffee every month. The head foreman would hand him $20 or so to get breakfast sandwiches and coffees for the 2-3 top guys on the job (back when $20 went way further than it does today). Sometimes the foreman would say "and get something for yourself" meaning if he wanted a drink or a candy bar etc he could use that instead of giving back the full change. My uncle had to pay for his own breakfast. On roughly the 2nd day of the job, my uncle saw that this was an opportunity to use his street smarts. After placing the order he explained to the owner of the deli that he was going to be here every day same time for 6-8 months, placing the same order giving the same amount of business each day. He also explained there were 4 delis in a block radius. He proposed a deal to help both parties. Cut him a break on the price of his own breakfast order, and he would continue to give the guy the business. So instead of my uncle paying $4-5 himself everyday , he was on the arm. In addition to the 1-2 bucks he would get from the foreman on some occasions. That's what we call a buyer's market. The deli needed the business, but my uncle wanted it known it could be anywhere, so the deli better be offering him a perk as a customer. 

Now I'm not saying Keegan Murray should have demanded a free meal every time, but if I was spending 12 grand on fast food, I would at least have asked for a free lemonade while I waited, or maybe one of those delicious brownies. Sometimes your buying power is worth more than. you realize and in this case Keegan had a lot. I hope he worked in some perks to his own order, but with the season over it's likely too late for him to learn what could have been. Maybe there's hope for the next Sacramento rookie reading this to use some of my uncle's street smarts to benefit themselves. Hey ... those brownies are delicious why not get a free one for such a big order ?