Saturday, March 29, 2008

Time to retire?

I saw this week that Chris Webber is retiring, at the age of 35.

From time to time I've thought about professional athletes - the non-golfers, anyway - and how strange it must be for them to have to hang it up in their thirties. I remember being in high school and reading an SI with a cover story on Michigan's Fab Five, of whom Webber was one. Since then, in my professional life, I've gone to college, decided on a major, found a job, went back to school, found a job in a new field, and now think ahead to what, potentially, the next 30 or 40 years of that career might hold. Chris Webber has played basketball. Not to say that there is no more to him than ball, but he has been focused on that job the entire time. (At least, I figure he's been focused to compete at that level.) His entire professional life has been as a player, and now, one year older than me, that life is over, whether he wants it to be or not.

Maybe it's only a difference of expectations. Webber certainly didn't expect to play in the NBA until he was eligible for Social Security, and maybe he thinks, "My word, how strange that someone one year younger than me could contemplate doing his current job for another 30 or 40 years."

1 comment:

Wm said...

We actually talked about this issue a whole lot in the Sports Law class which I took last summer. This class was supposed to be my treat for taking nothing but hard classes the rest of the time in school, but it turned out to be extremely useful. Anyhow, a good Sports Law attorney is supposed to help clients with post-career planning. A big part of this is managing expectations. Some people do great with making a huge amount of money upfront. They are able to recognize the gained leveraged of having their fortune now and are able to work that into a bigger fortune. Lenny Dykstra is a good example of this. Some do less well... to say the least.
That said... its normal now to think that you will radically change your profession 3 or 4 four times in your career.