By MATT CHANDLER
Buffalo Law Journal

Though the role of Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Rod Tidwell in 1996's "Jerry Maguire" earned actor Cuba Gooding Jr. an Academy Award, it was Tom Cruise as the title character, a brash, cocky sports agent, who owned the movie as Maguire labored to show Tidwell the money.

In his work for the fictitious Sports Management International, Maguire led a life of fast cars, designer suits and jet-setting around the country, catering to the rich and famous.

That's not the reality, though, for a handful of Western New York attorneys working in athlete management or trying to break into the field.

Most players on the region's four professional sports teams are represented by agents from outside the Buffalo area. Most people who talked to us about sports agency cited the excessive cost of getting into the business, the highly competitive nature of the field and the need to be located in a more metropolitan area as factors that have kept them from dipping a toe in the agent pool.

We talked to a couple of lawyers moving their way up in the field of professional athlete representation. While neither may become the next Jerry Maguire, they see opportunity in Western New York to follow their dreams.

Brent Nowicki has a passion for lacrosse. While friends and teammates chose to pursue the chance to play professionally after college, Nowicki opted to go to law school. Today, at 31, Nowicki is an associate at Hodgson Russ LLP and a rising star in the local world of sports agents.

"The game has always been a part of my life, but not a part of my professional life," he said. "Having played the sport and making my decision to go to law school, not playing professionally, the whole agent thing quite honestly never crossed my mind."

That is, until a few years ago, when some friends who playing lacrosse professionally came to Nowicki seeking advice and guidance regarding their contracts. One thing led to another and today, Nowicki is one of 10 lawyers nationwide approved by the Professional Lacrosse Players Association to serve as regional attorneys/agents for its players. With a stable of 10 professional lacrosse players thus far, Nowicki represents athletes from the Buffalo Bandits as well as franchises in Orlando and Boston.

While professional lacrosse may not have the $100 million contracts of the major professional sports, in some ways, Nowicki says that makes his job more exciting and challenging.

"There is the on-field contract and the off-field contracts, and its the off-field contracts that are more lucrative. There are a lot of camps, clinics, endorsement deals, travel deals," he explained. "There are only so many dollars and cents that can go around in an organization and a league. After that point, you have to get creative with the appearance money, endorsement money, different things that you can negotiate that aren't part of the paycheck, per se. That's where our job gets creative and fun."

Nowicki says despite the Buffalo Bandits winning the National Lacrosse League championship two seasons ago and filling HSBC Arena for its home games, businesses are slow to see the value of using lacrosse players as pitchmen.

"It is the second-fastest-growing sport in the country, and there is more of an upswing on the amount of kids playing the sport, but it's still a lot of work to get companies to recognize the marketability of the sport," he said.

Nowicki handles the endorsement deals for the league's all-time leading scorer, Bandit John Tavares. He is currently negotiating an endorsement deal with an international company based in Buffalo that sees a future with Tavares pitching its products.

Nowicki is in the process of becoming a certified player agent for the National Football League. He calls it the next logical step.

"Loving football, growing up in Buffalo, wanting to be a part of that as a fan, now I can take that passion and use my skill set to make a career doing it and help (Hodgson Russ) grow and expand in that direction," he said.

Just up the street, attorney Sean Schoenborn is busy handling real estate transactions and preparing cases for trial at DeMarie & Schoenborn PC. But the hockey enthusiast has a passion for players and a desire to work with them that goes back a decade, to a lucky break.

One year into law school at the University at Buffalo, Schoenborn was beginning the search for a summer internship. While most of his classmates flocked to big law firms, hoping to score some cash while building a network for a future job, Schoenborn headed downtown and applied to the Buffalo Sabres, who were looking for an in-house legal intern.

"Although I did some legal work for the team, I really ended up working on a lot of player contract negotiations and arbitrations from the team side," he said.

Not bad for a 23-yearold. Schoenborn went on to build on his experience with the Sabres, which came at a time the team went to the NHL finals, to land a spot on the other side of the negotiating table.

"I was looking to take that next step, and I was fortunate enough to obtain an internship with Sports Consulting Group in Rochester," he explained. Working with SCG's Steve Bartlett, who represents a number of NHL players - including one of the Sabres' top goal scorers, Thomas Vanek - was, he said, "a great experience."

Nearly a decade later, as Schoenborn continues to follow his dream of working as a hockey agent, he has maintained a relationship with his mentor and has worked with him on projects over the years.

Today, Schoenborn follows young players, attends tournaments and scouts local talent, biding his time and waiting for an opportunity to strike. He is currently serving as an adviser to the family of a prominent rising hockey player - he declined to name the young man - who was drafted in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.

Though this may be his biggest opportunity to break the ice in a business he calls "incredibly competitive," Schoenborn has worked in the past guiding players in the United Hockey League who were looking to move up in the ranks of the professional game.

"Unfortunately, it is a tough road for those guys, because they are people who are just hanging on, trying to keep a career going as long as possible," he says. "They are realistic. They know they might never make it to the big show, but they are good at what they do and they want to earn a living doing it."

Both Schoenborn and Nowicki said they're focused on building their respective practices for their firms. The chance to mix work with their lifelong passions, they said, is too good of a chance to pass up.