With the announcement today that Michael Bridges has made the decision to lace up the boots for the Newcastle Jets after retiring last year, it begs the question: When is it really over?
The list of sports stars who make the heavy decision that their career is over, only to make a comeback is endless.
From the world’s greats like Michael Jordan and Diego Maradona to local heroes like Ian Thorpe and Libby Trickett who, with their best years ahead of them, having achieved everything that is worth achieving in their respective sports, decide that the flame that lit the fire in the belly has somehow been reignited.
So, when is it really over? Decisions for sports stars to cut short their careers are personal and quite often, have come after a great deal of thought. Their reasons can vary from spending more time with the family, after grinding out 5am starts every day for the last 15 years, to injury and even simply “the love has gone”. But at the expense of this sounding like an emotional ballad to an ex- lover, where does the love go and how does one rekindle that love after a year of retirement?
Sport is, at its very essence, an emotional game. It drags you in, and has you sitting on the edge of your seat. And for its gladiators who venture out every weekend to test their craft with the codes elite, it’s much the same. It provides the highest highs and he lowest lows. It carries the weight of a town, city, state or country and, at the end of the day; there is a victor and a loser.
But unlike the rest of us who attend the daily grind, at our desks or in the workplace, professional sports people experience a transition that is so foreign to them after retirement, that they struggle to handle the next “chapter” of their life.
There is no doubt that there is a competitive streak in each professional sports person that is hard to replicate in life after sport, although many do achieve success in the corporate world climbing the ladder (like Mark Coyne) or as motivational speakers (Duncan Armstrong), or even in coaching. But when the lure of returning to the arena proves too difficult to pass up, with “unfinished business” to take care of, many stars return to close the final chapter in their illustrious careers… again.
But what happens when the love is gone, after returning to the sport that made them, for the second time, and when is it really over?
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