Millionaires U.

Once accepted, players are required to board at the Steinberg Center while attending.

"We have marathon sessions here. Classes go from 7:30 or 8 in the morning to 8 o'clock at night," explains Mori Taheripour, a lecturer of legal studies and business ethics with the Wharton School. She has taught business negotiations in the NFL program since it began, and has found the players well-prepared. "These guys spend hours studying [game] films and hours working out, so they have to be mentally focused. In a way, it really readies them for our program."

Two hours after checking into his room, Tucker was attending his first sessions: "Negotiating Employment and Business Relationships" and "Managing Career Transitions." Then came the welcome reception -- a "happy hour, hors d'oeuvres thing," Tucker called it -- and dinner, followed by a seminar given by Ken Lombard, then-president of Starbucks Entertainment. Afterward, several players headed to the lounge for a beer. Tucker went back to his room instead, to work on an upcoming column for Sports Illustrated and check e-mails regarding Go Big.

For the next three days, Tucker didn't step foot outside the Steinberg Center. Each morning, he'd wake up at 5 to fit in some work and at least a half-hour of cardio in the exercise room. After a quick shower and breakfast of scrambled egg whites and bacon or sausage, he was consistently one of the first players to arrive for the 8 a.m. class. Except for lunch, dinner and two 15-minute breaks, his classes continued until 9 p.m.

"We didn't have a lot of in-depth conversation while he was there," his wife, Kara, said later, laughing. "It was a great experience for Ross, but by the end of the night? Truthfully, he sounded exhausted."

Mid-morning on the fourth and final day of the first session, Peter Linneman taught a class on analyzing business investments. A professor of real estate, finance and public policy at Wharton, Linneman is also the founder of American Land Fund, a real estate investment fund.

All of the players, including Tucker, seemed to be running on slightly less energy than the day before. There were more coffee cups on the classroom tables, and several conspicuous yawns and stretches, as Linneman started dissecting a proposal for an $8.4 million health club that had been sent to a player for the Oakland Raiders. With growing glee, he pointed out a problem on each page. The investors had no experience running an operation; the land for the club had yet to be purchased; the overhead was "stunningly" large; the chance to make a profit negligible . . .

"The nature of being young and rich is unfortunate, in a funny way," he said near the class's conclusion. "You guys are victims. Walking victims. My number one strategy for you is, 'Don't lose it, guys. Don't lose it.'?"

The players in the classroom nodded. More than a few scribbled the words onto paper. They understood -- some firsthand -- how fleeting financial success can be. Pressure comes from all sides: relatives asking for handouts, investors who claim to know a "sure thing" in the stock market and, most notoriously, friends with dreams of opening a bar or nightclub. According to NFL figures, 78 players were scammed out of more than $43 million of their hard-earned money from 1999 to 2001 alone.

"It's nothing we haven't heard before, and it's true," Tucker said later. "Not that many people in their twenties have substantial capital to invest and no experience managing it." But, "most guys who come to this program will probably be okay anyway after they retire. The NFL doesn't have to worry about these guys. The players who really need these classes the most aren't here."

THE PROGRAM AT WHARTON IS DIVIDED INTO TWO SESSIONS, ostensibly so players have time to digest the amount of information they're given. It's always during the football offseason, a months-long stretch between final season games and preseason training camps when players are used to fitting in endorsement commitments and enjoying what Tucker calls "absolutely 100 percent free time."

During the three-week break between Wharton's sessions, Tucker took his wife on a much-anticipated vacation to Australia and New Zealand. His jet lag had only just dissipated by the time he checked back into the Steinberg Center, but he looked tanned and more rested than before. He was also sporting a dark, scruffy beard and mustache. He had forgotten to pack his shaving kit, and the courtesy razor from the downstairs concierge was too dull to do much good.