Justin LaFayette is another rarity who made the jump from jock to geek. LaFayette played in the National Hockey League with the Chicago Blackhawks from 1991 to 1993 before being sent to the Indianapolis Ice, a minor-league team then in the International Hockey League.

"The writing was on the wall that I'd be stuck in the minors, so I had to make a tough decision to walk away," says LaFayette, who'd earned a degree in computer information systems and business administration at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich.--on a hockey scholarship, of course.

Before co-founding DWL Inc. in 1996, LaFayette worked with NN Financial as a project manager in charge of assessing new and emerging technologies. Customer-relationship management can hardly be classified as new these days, but it's still tough work--and that's just the way LaFayette likes it. "I'm a competitive guy," he says. "Part of the reason I started this company was it gave me a challenge."