Kosar Loses Shirt, But You Can Buy It

No auction date has been given.

It's been a rough couple of years for former Miami Hurricanes and Dolphins quarterback Bernie Kosar, and it's about to get worse.

On Wednesday, Fort Lauderdale Bankruptcy Judge Raymond Ray put Kosar's bankruptcy case into Chapter 7 liquidation. The order gives a court-appointed trustee authority to sell Kosar's assests to pay off creditors.

A national championship ring from the Hurricanes' 1983 season offered on eBay suggests it may have already started.

In court documents filed in September, Kosar claimed $9.2 million in assets, including a Weston mansion where he lives with his oldest daughter, and $18.9 million in debt.

He has said he owes $1.5 million to the Cleveland Browns, for whom he starred from 1985 to 1993; $3 million to Babette Kosar, who divorced him in 2007; $725,000 from a personal loan from the owner of the arena league Cleveland Gladiators; and over $9 million to a bank thanks to several failed real estate deals.

(It's not an accepted financial measurement, but it's safe to say if you're borrowing from an area team, well, things are pretty bleak.)

Kosar's eponymous steakhouse chain stayed in the pocket too long, just like Kosar, and went out of business last year.

After Kosar retired as a Dolphin in 1996, he quickly put his dual degree in finance and economics from UM to work. He made piles of money a variety of ways, including investing in a company that later sold for $500 million, and gave away "eight figures" to charities (including, we presume, the Florida Panthers, of whom he was a part owner). He put over 100 kids through school, but, his wife claimed, gave away too much to family and friends who came to him with troubles.

"I got here with hard work; I'll get out of this with hard work," he has said of his financial troubles. "No wallowing. No 'woe is me.' I'm great at making money. And, as we've found out, I'm great at spending it. What I'm not great at is managing it."

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