With recent news of AARP/NHL liason Chris Chelios' attempts to return to professional hockey after being out for less than six months, I have to ask: why don't players just retire and be done with it?
So many players in professional sports these days are too stubborn to step out of the limelight and pass the torch to the next generation. A certain someone in the NFL is a very good example. I don't need to say who and that's exactly my point. This particular person should've retired a few years ago and should be living it up at a beach house in Maui.
Compare this to other professions. Do you think the CEO of a major company would be terribly excited if one of his middle management guys retired and un-retired three times in three years? Can one even do that!? Normal people have a plan and stick with it or change before it's too late so they don't look like assholes. There are many professional athletes that look like assholes.
What's even better is when they attempt to come back only to be rejected. Claude Lemieux (one of my favorite people) is a good example. He attended training camp with the San Jose Sharks only for the team to take a pass on a man who played many years and accomplished very little. Apparently Darren McCarty hit a few too many times in the head. McCarty is also a good example. As a Wings fan, I was ready to welcome him back to the game and the team with open arms, but when he was able to crack the lineup he did absolutely nothing and was promptly released. Perhaps the two were collaborating so they both could come back and create a trilogy of blood feuds. I would've watched it.
To use a word often lost in the sports world these days: the classy players are the ones who retire with dignity. Gretzky, Messier, Yzerman, Ripken Jr., etc. Athletes like these are the ones who don't want to see leave. These are the guys you wish were just joking when they said they were retiring but were really going to come back the next year. Though those are just pipe dreams. You know deep down players like these wouldn't do that because they are the classy ones. So we have to watch guys like Roger Clemens who just can't make up their freakin' minds. Or you'll see players who you know should retire but just won't go away like Allen Iverson. He finally called it quits after embarrassing himself earlier this season.
It should be every athletes dream to go out to a standing ovation
A message to all professional athletes: Get together with the family and financial planner and figure some stuff out. Don't wake up one day, decide to retire, and two days later change your mind. Make a decision and stick with it. It will save us all a lot of grief.
And now for your viewing pleasure.
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