Sure, there are the traditional ways – call in favors, beg, hit the phones and discuss the merits of the charity. You can tug at heartstrings, you can show the statistics but has anyone ever suggested actually HOW to donate.

I started thinking about this and the old question that asks, “how do you eat an elephant” suddenly struck me. Well, the answer as you know is, “one bite at a time” and that really got me thinking.

Recently, I was reviewing an article in SportsPro Magazine that listed the most lucrative contracts in the four major sports leagues (NBA, NFL, MLB and NHL). It wasn’t surprising that there were some very big names and some even bigger dollar figures: Alex Rodriguez (listed twice at #1 and #2), Derek Jeter, Manny Ramirez, Kobe Bryant.

As I studied the numbers, I thought about eating the elephant and I began to think what the numbers would be in “real-world” situations. I started breaking down numbers, taking it from annual to monthly to weekly and finally to hourly.

Here’s what I found:

A-Rod was number one on the list with his recent Yankees contract of $275 million over 10 years or $27.5 mill a year. Any idea what that is on a monthly basis? $2,291,667. How about per week? $572,917. And his hourly rate (assuming a 52-week year and 40-hour work week)?

$13,221 PER HOUR!!

In the time it takes me write this column, A-Rod will have “earned” $13,221.

How about Peyton Manning in the NFL? Manning, salary only, takes in $18.9 million a year. Breaking that down, using all the assumptions we did with A-Rod, the quarterback of the Indianapolis Colts is paid $9,066 per hour.

And the NBA? Well Kevin Garnett is the highest paid player in the NBA, making $22 million in salary this season. Break it down and the Big Ticket makes $10,577 per hour.

In the NHL, the highest paid player(s) are Daniel Briere, Scott Gomez and Thomas Vanek who each make $10 million a year, or $4,808 an hour. Yes Virginia, the lockout did affect the NHL.

Now, you’re probably saying this is crazy Dave. And you know what? You are ABSOLUTELY right. And here’s why…

Say, you’re someone making a very, very nice living and you’re earning $200,000 per year (all before taxes and such). A very, very nice living but any idea what you’re hourly wage is? It’s $96 an hour. Give yourself a $50,000 pay raise and you make $120 an hour.

That’s not a typo…$120 an hour if you make $250K a year.

The math is a lot easier down here amongst the “great unwashed.” At “only” $100,000 a year, you make $48 an hour; at $50,000, it drops to $24 an hour and at $30,000, you earn (no quotes this time) $14.42 an hour.

What’s the Federal minimum wage again? It’s $5.85 an hour. In Michigan, the minimum wage is $7.15 an hour. Let’s extend those out to an annual basis and we get $12,168 and $14,872 per year.

Remember A-Rod. In ONE HOUR, A-Rod makes $13,221 while in 2,080 HOURS a minimum wage worker earns between $12K and $14K. Hmmmmmmm…..

Now, I don’t do this to rip on A-Rod, or any of the other players and the leagues I mentioned. I do it to give you a point of reference AND to get you thinking...

WHAT IF YOU CONVINCED EVERY PLAYER IN PROFESSIONAL SPORTS TO CONTRIBUTE ONE HOUR’S WAGE PER YEAR TO A GENERAL CHARITABLE FUND?

How much money could you raise?

Well, I got so excited about this idea, I started running some numbers. The athletes I mentioned and their fellow top earners in the Top Ten could contribute $93,347. That’s a decent start…

Now, what if we looked at ALL the athletes in the four major leagues?

I did some loose calculations based upon some cursory research and found average salaries for players in each league. The NBA is $5.3 mill, MLB is $2.7 mill, the NFL is $2.0 mill and the NHL is $1.8 mill.

The number of players in the NBA is 450 (assume 15 per team); in MLB it’s 750 players (assuming 25 per team); NFL is the highest with 53 players per team for a total of 1,696; and the NHL comes in at 780 players (assuming 26 players per team).

Pretty easy to run the numbers and I’ll just use the NBA as an example: $5,300,000/52 weeks/40 hrs per week = $2,550 per hour for NBA players (on average). Now take $2,550 x 450 players in the league = $1,147,500 that can be contributed.

When you do the math for all four leagues, the total comes to $4,427,252.

Nearly $4.5 million by asking each player for ONE HOUR of their wages.

Imagine if we included coaches, GMs, owners, team presidents and commissioners. Now imagine if we included some of the other sports in the United States…NASCAR, tennis, golf, etc.

What if we applied this to the largest corporations and some of the biggest earners in the country? How about the guys at Goldman Sachs that I read about in December that got a $25 million bonus for the year…yes, a $25 mill BONUS.

When I start thinking about these possibilities, I get fired up. It is an easy concept to communicate. The simplicity of the idea is intriguing. The scalability makes it fair and achievable for everyone. And the relative dollar amounts for each individual won’t break anyone’s bank.

WHAT IF WE APPLIED IT TO EVERY WORKER IN THE UNITED STATES?

Think about the total number of people in the United States – last time I checked, it was about 300 million. Now, let’s say that 10% of this number are working individuals and that the average annual income is $50,000 (this is high, I’m sure, but I’ve become a huge optimist since starting this project).

So, at $50,000 per year, the hourly wage per worker is $24. Ten percent of 300 million is 30 million. Multiple $24 by 30 million and you know what you get?

$720,000,000

Now get 15% of the work force involved.

$1,080,000,000

That’s more than a billion dollars, giving only $24. Would you be willing to give up one hour’s wage per year to contribute to a national charity fund? What if you knew everyone else was contributing as well?

On Friday, we host the defending world champion San Antonio Spurs. We also host the Pistons Cares Telethon and our entire day will be devoted to raising money for Michigan kids that are very, very sick. We hope to grant 50 wishes.

What do you think an hour is worth to these kids? I’d be willing to bet that it would be more than the wages we will all earn in 40 hours work this week, combined.

How about donating just one hour to them?

To contribute to the Pistons Cares Telethon Benefiting the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Michigan, go to www.pistons.com or call 877-DPC-WISH.