Christian Ponder knows about money, and not just because he got a ton of it from the Minnesota Vikings from being the 12th overall pick in the 2011 NFL Draft. No, Ponder left Florida State University with a degree in finance and an MBA, which means he knows the ins and outs of managing one's money smartly.

So it makes sense, then, that Ponder was in Arkansas last week to celebrate the statewide rollout of Financial Football, a free educational game and curriculum created by the folks at Visa.

"Kids need to know how to make smart money management decisions early in life," said Ponder. "It takes the combined efforts of parents, teachers and mentors within the community to give teenagers a strong background in personal finance."

Available online, at http://northdakota.financialfootball.com, Financial Football puts students' fiscal knowledge to the test in an online simulation game environment by combining the structure and rules of the NFL with financial education questions of varying difficulty. Visa has also released the game as a free iPhone app on iTunes, along with an optimized HD iPad version.

The game is going to be distributed to every high school in 34 states. Sadly, it does not appear that Minnesota is on the list of states that will be receiving it. (And, yes, I changed the link in the block quote there from Arkansas to North Dakota because, well, North Dakota is awesome.)

Kudos to Christian Ponder for being part of such an initiative.