They don’t owe us anything.
Not another season. Not another game. Not another match.
Nothing.
More than any 3-6-5 in recent memory, 2006 is shaping up as the Year of the Good-Bye. On a cool fall Las Vegas evening,
Floyd Mayweather became the latest jock icon to tell us it’s time for him to go. The 29-year-old boxer with enough gaudy green championship belts to open a Madison Avenue haberdashery spoke just minutes after methodically and convincingly dispatching tough, but overmatched,
Carlos Baldamir in a 12-round title fight at the convention center hard by the
Mandalay Bay Hotel.Mayweather surprised everyone with his emotional announcement, including his family. It came without warning not long after the fighter sat down to discuss the bout. Without any real prompting he grew quiet then turned from the assembled questioners, shedding tears. "I love the sport," Mayweather said, composing himself, still wiping tears. "One more fight and I'm through. I don't need boxing. I'm not in it for the money. (Mayweather earned a few Bennies more than $8 mill for this fight.) It's about legacy. I'm rich and I've accomplished what I want."
Earlier this year, of course,
Andre Agassi waved good-bye, leaving behind a legendary tennis career. Last month, New York Giants running back
Tiki Barber, perhaps the NFL’s BEST over the last few seasons, confirmed that 2006, his 10th pro season, would be his last pro season. And just last week, Barber’s local compadre, Jets running back
Curtis Martin, who’s missed all of this season with a painful knee injury, said all he could say without actually using the word “retirement” in announcing he was done for this season and likely all seasons.
Barber’s announcement prompted whining in some circles that the 31-year-old running back somehow owed it to fans to play longer and solidify stats that are now not quite worthy of the Hall of Fame, or validate his career by winning a Super Bowl, something he’s never accomplished. “He’s cheating the fans,” was uttered more than once. “Is he just being selfish?”
Among this year’s Good-Bye Boys, all but Martin, 33, can still play. Mayweather may be the very best in the star-starved boxing game, and Barber is the league’s leading rusher this season and remains one of football’s most durable, dependable and accomplished backs. Agassi still has game, but an uncooperative back made it impossible for him to perform with tennis’s elite and compete for a Grand Slam.
A rule in the sportswriters’ code book says we’re forbidden from ever writing the words “boxing” and “retirement” in the same sentence. Mayweather’s intentions seemed heartfelt and genuine, as if the myriad challenges he’s confronted outside the ring during his career finally wore him down. "The sport has been great to me,” he said. “When I die, my legacy will live on. One more fight and I am through."
Maybe so, (especially if that fight is a double-digit million-dollar payday against fellow icon
Oscar De La Hoya). But it’s hard to imagine a boxer who still has faculties stepping through the ropes for the final time before the age of 30. That’s just me.
So-called premature retirements by great players are rare. The poster-jock for early retirement is Jim Brown who could have had his name printed on the front of the NFL record book if he’d played more than nine seasons. Former Detroit Lions rusher
Barry Sanders is often mentioned, as well. Reefer-madness hysteria surrounding
Magic Johnson's HIV infection forced him out of the NBA when he could still put up a triple-double in his sleep.
Michael Jordan and
Roger Clemens tried to leave early but MJ couldn’t live without competition and, well, who thinks Clemens will ever really retire? Or is it just me?
Whatever athletes decide to do – from the great ones to those who just disappear quietly without any press conferences, tears or rocking chairs – we have no right to demand any more of them.
Not in an age when even the average pro-jock will have earned enough to live more comfortably than most of us can dream by the time they’re eligible to vote.
Not in an age when at least an elite few are not allowing the fullness of their lives to be defined by mere physical feats on a field, court, diamond or ring. They’re investing in new businesses, creating charities designed to lift communities, starting new careers, even running for political office. For these lucky few, their stats are just the foreword to the tale that becomes the rest of their lives.
Then there are the unlucky.
Earl Campbell is the poster-jock most mentioned of late, as validation why Tiki and Curtis and others are doing the right thing by leaving before we think they should. Formerly one of the most punishing runners in football history, Campbell, now 51, is said to need help walking.
He’s not the only unlucky one, by any stretch. They all squeezed one too many seasons, one too many games, one or two or three too many matches out of their broken bodies – all because leaving is never easy. But it’s almost impossible when you’re not sure where you’re going.
