I was at the same point recently. I was offered a management position with the company I currently work for. I would have stayed in the industry and had a nice salary. It came down to two things:
1) I'd be looking at that aircraft sitting on the ramp every day for the rest of my life wishing I was one of the guys in the front.
2) Living simply now, along with hard work, and a little luck will result in better pay, and conversely a better lifestyle than that job could afford in a few years.
What it comes down to is this: Do a lot of soul searching. Do what's right for you. If you can't imagine doing anything else, suck it up and go for it. You're a football player if I recall so you know about toughness. You have a degree that you can always fall back on if in a couple years you decide you want out. If you don't have the responsiblities of a wife and kids, do it now because once your family is established it's going to be even harder to leave them, subject them to the huge lifestyle change that comes with going from a 50k per year management job to a 20k per year regional FO, or uproot them becuase you're junior and on reserve making commuting basically impossible.