To Whom It May Concern

Walking Into The Sunset

This week, John Stockton, basketball player for the Utah Jazz NBA team, announced that he was going to retire after 19 years in the game, and Karl "The Mailman" Malone isn't sure what he will do yet, he is a free agent next year. Now, I don't really like the Utah Jazz, but anytime a player of sports who has played for most of my lifetime and developed a near 'icon-like' status, such as Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, or Magic Johnson did, you get sort of used to seeing them day after day during the season, like or not. When they retire, although inevitable, it's still sort of sad, the end of an era.

It seems like Wayne Gretzky of the NHL, Tom Osborne (coach of my beloved Nebraska Cornhuskers college football team), Michael Jordan (for the first time), Barry Sanders of the NFL, and some of the others, were retiring all within like just a couple of years, I remember sitting there the first day I heard Tom Osborne was going to retire, and feeling a wash of wide eyed shock about it. He was given the reigns to the Nebraska football program in 1972, the year I was born, I had never known another coach of the Huskers, I know it was going to be strange, to not see him on the sidelines in the fall of each passing year, something I was so accustomed to. These players and coaches are icons, we idolize them when we are young and grow to respect them even more as we get older. Certainly others come along to replace them.

I never really understood how anyone could say that Pete Marivich or Dr J. could be anywhere near as good as Michael Jordon, or that Muhammed Ali could ever be considered as good as Mike Tyson, until now, when my idols begin to disappear one by one. Those who enter the league to replace them, they may be better, but I don't want to let go of that magical feeling in my youth, a time when I would listen to the radio at night to hear highlights of what Mark McGuire was doing hitting home runs, or turning on the television to see a magical pass play by Joe Montana to Jerry Rice. It is a connection to a time when things weren't so stressful, when life was easier, when a boy could enjoy sports right alongside wasting time all day swimming and riding his bike with friends. Each time another one retires I start to feel older, a little more vulnerable.

Change is constant, and in such a high profile area such as sports, it is a reminder that our time on earth is short and precious, and to make the best of that time we have.