BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- The top two appointments on Cornelius Bennett's agenda Monday said everything about the retired football star's life these days.

At 1 p.m., the Alabama football legend had a tee time.

At 6 p.m., he had a teleconference.

The first one represented the fact that golf is a part of his happy retirement from a 14-year career in pro football, but this was no leisure outing. This was the first of what might become an annual Cornelius "Biscuit" Bennett & Friends Celebrity Golf Tournament at Greystone Golf & Country Club. As a favor to a sister-in-law, he was raising funds for Children's Village Inc., a Birmingham group home for boys and girls place in foster care.

"I've had previous golf tournaments in the past," said Bennett, 45, who now lives in South Florida. "I know the kind of money that can be raised, and I enjoy playing golf. My friends said, 'Do a golf tournament.'"

The phone call was serious but unselfish business. Bennett has served for nine years on the NFLPA's Board of Former Players, and he became the chairman two years ago.

"That's what I get joy from now," the Birmingham native said. "I'm helping others, and I can honestly say I enjoy doing what I'm doing now more than when I was a player, because then it was only about me."

Bennett is heavily involved in the talks between NFL owners and players as negotiations toward ending a lockout continue. Some of the talk involves benefits for retired players. Overall, Bennett said, progress has been made.

"The progress is we are talking and meeting," he said. "There has been nothing agreed upon, but we are meeting, which is important, giving us a chance to feel each other out.

"My personal feeling is that we will have a season. We're putting the pressure back on management. The players don't care about them signing free agents and all that other business. All the guys want to do is play football."

When he finished his career as a three-time All-American linebacker at Alabama in 1986, Bennett didn't give much thought to the business side of pro football.

"All I wanted to do was play," he said.

But business got in the way. In 1987, Bennett was selected in the first round of the NFL draft with the second pick by the Indianapolis Colts, but contract talks stalled. By the time the players went on strike early in the season, he still was unsigned. He was trade to the Buffalo Bills on Oct. 31, the strike soon ended and his pro career soon began.

Bennett went on to play in five Super Bowls and five Pro Bowls. He admits now that early in his career, he didn't give much thought to the plight of retired players.

"To be honest, you'd see guys come around, and you'd respect them, and you assume until you find out otherwise that everybody's doing well," Bennett said. "You see your checks. You know how much you've made, and you assume that everybody else is taking care of their finances the way you are. But that's not always the case."

Bennett said his father worked in a Birmingham-area steel mill for 33 years.

"We weren't rich, but we were OK," Bennett said. He said he assumed all other families of steel mill workers were in similar shape.

"And I assumed that everybody who played ball, until I found out otherwise, was doing OK," he said. The awakening came after he retired, when he occasionally mingled with retirees from other generations.

"Some of them aren't OK," Bennett said.

Bennett was inducted into the Alabama Sports Hall of Fame in 2004 and the College Football Hall of Fame in 2005. He is not yet in the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

"I believe it will happen," the former Ensley High School star said. "When it does, the time will be right."