Michael Jordan made it popular and Roger Clemens made it nauseating. This summer when Brett Favre announced his return nearly all of Green Bay was in upheaval. Someone who had a team built around him for over a decade had hung up his cleats only to put them, and it was as though the option was no longer there.
When athletes are so special that they are at the top of their game and they carry with them that certain mystique, it is hard to deny them the right to go out on their own terms. It does, however, become difficult when it affect the careers of their teammates and even the face of the game. In Green Bay, it had become Aaron Rodgers time, and while Favre will forever be revered by Packer fans, the organization and fans alike believed his time had come.
This past week, Tour de France legend Lance Armstrong announced he looks to be back for the 2009 race, peddling it out with his old racing team, Astana. Since Armstrong’s retirement, Astana has been banned from the race for resistance in efforts to clean up doping. While Astana’s 2009 fate is still uncertain, Armstrong has said he would go as far as to appeal to French president, Nicolas Sarkozy, to get his team back in the hunt. Armstrong, who last won in 2005, will undoubtedly be a contender to win the race next summer, but will that race be enough for him?
It is not up to a fan to decide when a player should or should not retire. Playing the game is not just the player’s career, but often the defining factor in his or her life. The problem is what become of the player when the game is about to change. For Favre, his team moved on and for Armstrong, his team got banned. With team sports, can one player so greatly command the scene? In these cases it is obviously not an issue of money. Maybe it is for glory or maybe it is for another record, but if it is for a genuine love for the game, then athletes have the right to keep on playing.
Yet despite this right, it is still selfish. Athletes cannot be forced into retirement, but they should know when to bow out gracefully. The face of their respective sports change and with that change comes a call for new talent, new fan fair, and a new icon. Both mean have done so much for their sports, but enough is enough. It’s time for new heroes, and all this indecision has grown quite tiring.
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1 comment:
A great, punchy first sentence that gets the reader right into the heart of the matter. “Affect” with an s. All-in-all, a wonderful mix of opinion, style, voice, diction and good punctuation. You even vary your syntax and sentence structure, which if is not intentional, should be. Short punchy sentences versus longer ones give the reader a different feel while reading. Very, very solid work.
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