Great Reading

I just picked up Age Is Just A Number by Dara Torres. Absolutely fantastic. All of the issues of picking up and trying again as well as feelings of when and why to walk away are laid out in entertaining, inciteful prose.

Check your local library before hopping on Amazon. This recession still lingers.

Like Mike Part II

The fear of being finished and finite is expressed here in all it's raw honesty:

http://espn.go.com/video/clip?id=4465373

Can you find another 'equal' to the thrill and challenge of your given sport? Will the future you ever compare to the past one that was heralded by all? Is 'loving the game' rhetoric for 'loved what the game gave me'?

Lest We Forget

Did all the great ones attempt to throw their hat back in the ring? The more iconic the athlete the more we forgive and forget any smears to their legacy:


http://msn.foxsports.com/editorschoice/pgStory?contentId=9776478#sport=More%20Sports&photo=9953096

The ladies

The desire to return to competitive sport is gender blind, though being able to snap back from producing another human being almost seems challenge enough.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tennis/news/story?id=4494731

Like Mike

Ok, Mike. We gave you the benefit of the doubt for so long, because you were so damn good and we loved you. But it seems not even you can escape the memories and longing for what used to be:

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=aw-jordanhall091209&prov=yhoo&type=lgns

Proving others wrong drove you to perfection. Being competitive and beating opponents fueled your work ethic. Other than the fact that the golf course hits par everyday, where did that motivation and energy go now that there's no longer a test of betterness looming right around the corner?

Super Quitter

The word 'quit' has such negative connotations. Almost as bad as 'giving up'. In either case, there is the stigma of being defeated. Of not being good enough or willing to work hard enough to make the cut to continue. What they don't tell you or maybe are afraid of looking at themselves, however, is the reason WHY someone endures the life of a competitive athlete is often because they don't know what else to do. The devotion to their game becomes one of desperation. They choose the put-ten-times-in-what-you-get-out and like it life because they percieve it to be the only option available. The hard they take so much pride in becomes familar and safe and comfortable.
The choice to move on is not about surrender. It's about believing you have something else to offer. It's about making the hundred and sixty so hours in the week your not playing or training more meaningful than the eight or so that you are. It's about convincing yourself that you are more than what the world has heralded you for. What you will find, if you dare to look, is that the greater world at large sees you much differently than that world you inhabit those few precious hours. It seeks to uplift Clark Kent and derail superman. Superman needs a villain or some sort of impending doom to appear. Clark wakes up everyday, put on his glasses, and embraces life. There's no need for capes and tights to get the job done.

Smashing the Flex Capacitor

Athletes never live in the present. They're either focused on re-creating the successes or experiences of the past or driven to make next season their best. This failure to live in the present is especially taxing to athletes attempting to walk away. They continue their accustomed training pattern, just in case they strike up the nerve (or the ordinariness of the world impresses the need) to suit up again. As the days pass on and they've shrugged off the awkward idleness of the competitive season, the intensity and/or frequency of their workouts adjust accordingly. Without a coach or game dictating what they should be working towards, the post-competitive athlete must either find another cause or slow themselves down enough to begin to focus on enjoyment of the present. The discipline and routine that made them an above average athlete must now be re-channelled into becoming like all those easy-going, uncommitted folks they looked down upon for so long. The fact that all those that found joy and contentment in the everyday had things figured out all along is a staggering shock to the psyche. You watch from a distance and wonder what it all meant, questioning all you had done and were; longing for the first time to be something you're not sure you know how to be.

The plan

An athlete sees his or herself as someone who becomes their sport, not one who simply participates in it from time to time. Sport has afforded them elite status, has separated them from ordinary, has provided them a like-minded circle of friends, and has given them a concrete goal to improve upon every day. In turn, they are dependent on this gift giver for all the specialness they've encountered: travel, experience, notoriety, fortune... the good in their life has come because they were good at a particular sport. It is the utmost esteem builder to walk around every day knowing that you are already better than most people at at least one thing, and to have the chance to prove you are better than even your specialized peers at every practice, training, game, or match.

In researching information about the post-competitive athlete, I have come upon multiple sources that attempt to explain this particular phenomenon as scientific and categorical. As someone who suffered greatly through leaving my given sport, I argue that the depression and search for identity is stifling and stunting and anything but rational and following formulaic logic. Studies of hundreds of soccer players doesn't give you an insight into the agony of one who physically cannot or, even more indecisively, makes the conscience decision to stop playing.

How do you divorce yourself from the sport that you didn't just marry, but have become?

This blog attempts to flush out the answers to that by giving anecdotal evidence, documented observations, and insight into the mind of a post-competitive athlete that found her way to the other side.

The "DONE" conundrum

No athlete wants to admit they're finished. They've spent a lifetime doing everything they possibly can to become a winner, or at least better than those who aren't good enough to continue playing. At one point in their lives, probably one they can't even remember, simply playing their sport became an elitist thing. They were better because they chose or were coaxed to continue when so many others stopped. An athlete considers walking away from what they and others have built themselves up to be, defeat.

Why on earth would you let a game you gave so much to beat you?

Those who compete in high school, college, and beyond have found too much success and notoriety in these games that they begin to identify themselves as a _____________ (insert sport here) player, even in the off season. (If you read that and thought to yourself, "What off season?", you've proved my point.) Being 'done' throws that all away. So much of your time, work, and sacrifice seems like a waste, and with so much of your life wasted it's damn near impossible finding your bearings amidst the rubble. It seems like the only option is to go back, which is why the return is so alluring. You have your cause, the odds stacked against you, and a heck of challenge pointing due north back to the promised land of purpose.

The fear of being ordinary drives many people to do many things.

It starts... again.

Though I'm a native of Chicago and narrow my eyes a bit at the first sign of Packers gear, this blog isn't an ongoing tirade of my hatred towards Brett Favre. Rather, it is a peek inside the psychology of athletes unable to let go of the sports they love and identify with. No one in recent history seems to epitomize this (tragic?) trend better than ol' number 4. True, the name Michael Jordan could possibly be interchanged, but when the guy plays from your hometown and brings six championships to your doorstep, he gets granted a bit of leeway.

I could put it off no longer. On the day that Favre breaks his second retirement and signs a two-year deal with the Vikings, I have written my first post. See you in the NFC central.