Phillip Buchanon

Buchanon played high school football at Lehigh Senior High School in Lehigh Acres, Florida where he started at both running back and defensive back. During his senior year, he earned an All-State selection. He finished his career with 102 tackles and seven interceptions. He also lettered in basketball, track, and baseball.

Buchanon was also on the school's track & field team, where he was a standout sprinter for three seasons. He posted personal bests of 10.5 seconds in the 100 meters and 21.8 in the 200 meters, and was also timed at 4.3 seconds in the 40-yard dash.[1] He joined the Hurricanes' track team in 2001, and won the 60 meters at the Meyo Invitational, recording a career-best time of 6.79 seconds.[2]

Buchanon played college football at the University of Miami. During his junior year, he earned All-American honors as a returner and was a finalist for the Mosi Tatupu Award. He finished his career with 88 tackles and seven interceptions on defense, and 32 punt returns for 477 yards and two touchdowns as a returner.

At the NFL Combine he ran a 4.31 40-yard dash, tied for the fastest time in 2002.[3]

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Buchanon is the cousin of former Tennessee Titans defensive end Jevon Kearse.

He was offered a $500,000 contract by the Cincinnati Reds to play baseball but ultimately decided to play football instead.[10]

In Buchanon's book New Money: Staying Rich (2015, Two Harbors Press) he describes the money troubles common among young athletes who come into sudden wealth. Among other anecdotes he describes how his mother demanded a million dollars from him as compensation for raising him, after he was drafted by the Oakland Raiders with a $4.9 million signing bonus.[11] He refused to pay the cash to her, noting among other objections: "If you do the math, one million dollars divided by 18 years of raising me was approximately $55,555.55 a year in restitution," an amount he considered excessive.[12] He instead bought her an upscale home to occupy and paid the house's mortgage and maintenance costs; she used his childhood home as a rental property. After seven years he realized the new home's upkeep was more than he could afford, and Buchanon offered his mother a choice: he would either pay her a lump-sum, or buy a smaller house outright with no mortgage for her and his younger siblings to occupy. He reported that she took the cash and moved back to his childhood home, only to eventually lose it to foreclosure.[12]

In 2016, Buchanon launched a board game, New Money: Staying Rich, designed to teach principles of financial literacy and management.[13][14][15][16][17]

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