Hanging them up

We've all been there ... having to make that decision to stop playing. I'm facing the big one for hockey and I'm not sure I can walk away just yet. Of course, I may have to, considering I'd rather some form of memory and cohesive thought for the remainder of my life. But I may have finally taken one too many shots to the head.

Why did you 'retire' from your own sporting career and how hard was it?

 

Flash, there's not a day go by that I don't miss playing hockey. Sometimes painfully so.

In my case, it was a catastrophic ankle injury that made me hang up my goalie pads.

But if the body's giving out, it's giving out. You can't fight it.

 

dislocated shoulder that caused rotator cuff problems... missed it for the first year, less so after that. But lso increased my rounds of golf from 15 to 40 a year so it made up for it.

 

Being fragile like this makes me want to cry, Rosie ...

 

When the coach told me he didn't take walk-ons.

 

Flash, check your PM.

 

Read and replied. Thanks, love.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have any playing experience other than intramurals.

Thus, my retirement decision happened when I was 6 and I realized I didn't have the hand-eye coordination to play any sports.

 

I never played basketball at a high level competitively, but few days go by when I see players posting up and dunking and emotion and last-minute drama and I don't wish I could be back out there in some form playing with nine other guys.

I know someone who was forced to quit running because of an injury. This was four years ago. It bothers her every single day.

 

I'll never forget the final minutes of my football career. I was on the field for the last play and screwed up a blocking assignment on a trap play. The TE next to me was a nice guy and was like, 'hey, don't forget, we're running [some kind of] block on trap.' I just told him it didn't matter for me anymore. I was a scrub on a middling Division III team; the NFL was largely uninterested.

I hung around the field forever, taking pictures and sharing the time with family and teammates. I was one of the last ones in the locker room and I just walked around and walked around with my pads on. I knew as soon as I took them off, that was it.

Eventually I did, but not without a lot of tears. I showered, left, did the usual post-game meal with my family, mostly hiding how much it hurt. That night I went drinking with my girlfriend at the time, who seemed kinda pissed I'd dare grieve for my now-posthumous football career. I cried myself to sleep that night.

The next morning I woke up and still felt kinda sad, but I had gotten it out of my system and was ready to move on. Or maybe I was just hungover... who knows.

So Flash, I guess the moral of the story is to find a new challenge, find something that gets the juices flowing that won't endanger yourself.

 

I didn't realize my athletic career was ending when it did. So be glad you're able to prepare for it.

I went from playing college soccer to a tryout with a professional indoor team to playing high-level adult league to not playing at all in less than three years.

My mother was a high-level amateur tennis player as an adult. Finally, she had to give it up in her 50s after winning state and regional titles. She focused all that tennis energy into competitive bridge and hiking. She's 65 and thinks nothing of going on 10-mile hikes.

 

Hustle,

Sounds like John Ed Bradley, "It Never Rains In Tiger Stadium." Good read; worth checking out if you haven't already.

Perhaps you too, Flash. The book is all about a man who ends his football career at LSU and how he copes with it. Might not be a lot of parallels, but perhaps something will reach you where it counts.