On my way to interview Bengals RB Corey Dillon last week for an upcoming feature in ESPN The Magazine, I had a brief conversation with a woman in the Cincinnati airport. "You know, Reggie Rembert is my brother-in-law," she said.

I remembered the 6'6" receiver from West Virginia. He was a teammate of mine with the Bengals. "Whatever happened to him?" I asked.

"He's locked up," came her terse reply. "Failure to pay child support."

The woman talked about how Rembert squandered all the money he made during his career. "He didn't invest," she said. "That's what happens to most of those guys."

Man, how many times have I heard that one? Asking someone if they invested their money is like asking them if they practice safe sex. You don't really care about that person's well-being, you just want to reassure yourself that you wouldn't have been so imprudent.

Do people really think an athlete's financial sense is any more sound than anyone else's? Does your name or reputation shield you from financial schemes, a fickle economy, or a plummeting NASDAQ? I don't think so. And correct me if I'm wrong, but right about now, the stock market pretty much sucks for everyone, does it not?

But what really upsets me is the assumption that anyone who earns his loot in helmet and shoulder pads, or shorts and sneakers, lives only for the here and now. It just ain't so.

I got my evidence almost as soon as I sat down to lunch with Dillon. Instead of the buffet, I got a hearty slice of irony. When he mentioned his favorite book was Robert T. Kiyosaki's Rich Dad, Poor Dad, I laughed aloud. "It's a book about making money and keeping money," he said with a knowing smile. "And those are good things to know."

I thought, 'Man, I wish that woman at the airport could hear this.'

I also wish I'd told that woman about a conversation I had with Eddie George last summer. After he began three sentences with the words, "I think," I asked George if he was always so introspective. "Yeah, I guess I am," he said. I asked him if he ever reached any conclusions. He looked me in the eye and said, "There really aren't any conclusions. Not until death."

Yep. Death and taxes. For Eddie George, Corey Dillon, and some lady in the Delta terminal.

Alan Grant, a former NFL defensive back, writes football for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at alan.grant@espnmag.com.