As soon as the news flashed last January I made the prediction to my wife: “I don’t care what he says, he ain’t retiring.” She didn’t seem to care one way or the other, sharing the view of most marginal football followers who have other concerns in life distracting them from incessant worrying about an NFL quarterback hanging it up. The rest of us couldn’t help but be interested; if the Olympics hadn’t provided a reprieve, we’d be on our fourth straight week of persistent Favre updates. Sports fans commit themselves to following other men’s lives…

Athletes don’t retire with gas in the tank unless another life awaits that both outweighs the grind and offers sufficient challenge to get them up in the morning (see Tiki Barber and Anika Sorenstam), especially when injury isn’t the main prompter for retirement. The athletic psyche stalks challenge, seeks goals that push beyond barriers posed by “normal” life. Athletes crave this bar-raising lifestyle and can become addicted to it--and like other addicts, it usually happens without their knowledge or consent. A few other possible reasons for the "un-retirement":

Idolatry: Not a word we’re going to hear through media outlets, but idolatry engulfs an athlete’s heart the moment all activities in life begin orbiting the sport itself. Remove the idol, and suddenly they’re left with nothing to worship, nothing to organize life around, nothing that offers a fixed point for meaning and purpose.

Seduction of attention: Fans can be annoying, and avoiding the masses outside the lines becomes an art, but the heart grows fond of being a hero. When does being loved for one’s performance grow old? “You know, I’m really worn out seeing beautiful women wearing a jersey with my name on it. Come to think of it, all these kids looking at me with that mesmerized look before an autograph has to stop.” Once you retire, you’re no longer headline news, a bigger deal than mortals like the rest of us realize. Think: any Jordan highlights recently on “Sport Center” ?

Elite competition: Sure, Favre looks like he’s having a blast on the Wrangler commercials, tossing a football in the backyard to a guy struggling to catch and run at the same time. Don’t buy it. After 20+ years playing with elite-level players, chumming around at the local YMCA with Angry Church Softball Players hurts the spirit (and endangers the body!). Retiring to backyard pick-up ball, while a romantic notion, reeks.

Routine: My dad just retired after 40 years of teaching/coaching. We’re all excited for him, but he talks with me like a man on death row approaching his execution day. He isn’t sure what to do with himself. Rhythm in our schedule brings comfort, especially when it’s set by the NFL: pre-season, regular season, playoffs, Super Bowl, Pro Bowl, off season workouts, training camp, etc. The camaraderie, the routine, the comfort of knowing where one fits in—retirement is the death of an entire scheduling and relational lifestyle.

Whether it was handled well or not is another discussion, but we all understand why you can’t quit, Brett. Even if my wife doesn’t care one way or the other…

What are we sacrificing when a culture seeks to provide for their children what we did not have athletically? Each year it seems that younger and younger kids are enrolled in select teams in the name of “providing for them the best opportunities to succeed.” Parents are trying to get their child on the “right” team for athletic, social and financial reason.

The kids become one sport athletes without a chance to try other sports, sometimes forsaking opportunities to develop themselves physically, emotionally and mentally to the different challenges that each sport brings. But what can be far worse to the kids and the other teams they are on is that parents have the kids on two or sometimes three different teams during the same season. Now the parents are sacrificing their child for the sake of sport but also the other teams have to sacrifice because practices and games are missed or cut short because of the other sports.

The teams/coaches try to be the best team in order to keep up with the other teams and will practice for two hours a day, five days week. But it won’t stop at six days because there may be a coach out there practicing your 6-7 year olds seven days a week in order to seek that advantage. For what? A trophy that no one really wants to keep on their mantel and ends up in a basement.

There are many other things sacrificed by parents who go down this road like a chance at a healthy family unit. Parents are regulated as taxis to get the kids to and from school/practice/games and then try and eat a meal (typically fast food which does not help their athletics) and throw in some homework late at night. When is there any time to sit at the dinner table as a family at the same time and talk? This will come back to haunt these kids when they become adults and do not know how to relate to their kids or have family memories to share with their kids.

As a nation the spiritual development of our children is also sacrificed because we justify missing going to church in the name of a weekend tournament. We miss the fellowship and training that takes place during the week for one of the many practices. The kids are not only missing the spiritual training but also the fellowship and peer accountability they receive when attending their house of worship.

But do you know what the saddest part of it all is? Ninety-Nine percent of these kids will be burned out on the sport before middle school, will not make their high school team or will be injured and never play again. Very rarely does a child go through it all and make it to the pro level. If an child is gifted with athletic ability they will raise the to top. If we push and work them at age 8, 10 or 12 they will most likely be passed by those kids with natural athletic ability. They will not have their childhood memories of playing games in the street with neighbors, going camping with family or a family dinner.

Stop believing the lie that our society tells us, coaches place on us. Let the kids be kids while still being athletes, students, musician and everything else related childhood.

Sports are great and I am a product of them. I competed in multiple sports through grade school and began to narrow my focus once I got to high school which led to a D1 scholarship and eventually competing in the 1996 Olympic Trials.

We try and limit our kids to one sport per season and while they occasionally will miss church we supplement that time with a family devotional. We have the family policy which is communicated to the coach at the beginning of the season. If church is missed for a weekend game, a week day practice is missed so we can attend church mid- week. Lastly we typically arrange our schedule so that we eat before practice as a family. It takes work, planning and sacrifice but as parents of our children we don’t want them to be sacrificed for the sake of sports.

Tim Pitcher

Made a connection recently. Not one that solves why I choose to live in a state with snow on the ground in March nor why I can’t do simple home repairs, but a connection nonetheless: what do every team in the world along with every American Idol contestant each season have in common?

Answer: All except one will go home with a loss on their mind. While watching our premier American sports and music combatants this spring, it seems 1) everyone expects to be the last man/woman/team standing and 2) everyone seems shocked when they are sent home holding a final loss, as though winning were an entitlement and losing is for, well, losers--something experienced only on rare occasions like snow in the south.

This expectation isn’t necessarily bad. When Kristy Lee Cook brings a sign to the Idol stage last week virtually conceding defeat, our competitive instincts are insulted, like unspoken rules of engagement being violated—you don’t invite, request, or welcome the loss. When Mount St. Mary’s gets in against North Carolina, the beat-down talk is off-putting, even if predictably true. But if nothing inside convinces at least them they can win, save the airfare and stay home.

You fight to the finish, scrap until they drag you off the stage bloodied and thoroughly beaten—but you never give in. Coach Lombardi told me on a plaque as a teen, “If you can accept losing, you can’t win”. True on a field with balls or a stage with mics—fight to the death, never quit, (insert your own battle cliché here).

But even Lombardi, who won a ridiculous 74% of the time during the regular season over his 10 year career and garnered 5 league championships, took home something less than a championship in 5 of those years. He didn’t have to accept losing, but apparently even he had to make sense of it at the end of the season half the time.

In a culture whose sole criteria for success is winning it all, we completely ignore an opportunity in sports to engage reality—life is far more about learning to lose well than experiencing the victor’s parade, whether we like it that way or not. When in the 70s ABC’s Wide World of Sports began their show illustrating “the thrill of victory and the agony of defeat,” I figured they would come to me in equal portions over the course of my life. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. Work harder than the other guy and you’ll win more often than not.

But that’s not guaranteed, no matter how “successful” a program one may find oneself in. Instead, except in rare situations, a loss closes the season or tournament or playoffs for most teams, and championships are hard to come by. And how many times do we see repeat champions in any sport for any length of time?

The challenge is to lose without being a loser. To strive for excellence every time out and play with the intensity and passion and confidence of someone who anticipates victory while still being able to process defeat with dignity and depth for having faced the test regardless of the final outcome. To savor the ride and have wisdom enough to appreciate the God-given privilege of journeying in the first place.

Memphis Tigers? A great team but they take home a final loss for the summer. New England Patriots? Talk of best team ever, but still spinning from a Super Bowl loss. Colorado Rockies? A team of destiny swept away in the World Series loss column. But losers?

Lombardi also hit me with “winning isn’t everything, winning is the only thing,” but that doesn’t mean he was right. Accepting losing is unacceptable, but accepting loss is absolutely necessary, and in some cosmic way perhaps prepares a player/team to win the next time out, if not on the field, then certainly in life.

With all that said, I’d still rather learn about life through winning and absolutely hate losing. Lombardi got to me first, and I’ve been trying to make sense of my life ever since.

I clearly remember during an open gym session in high school a crowd forming around a guy who had apparently just fallen hard on his ankle. Arriving in time to get a spot in the gathered circle, I also recall two snapshots from that scene: the white of a shattered ankle bone protruding through his skin, and the pained breaths he forced through his twisted mouth, oddly foreshadowing similar sounds my wife would make while delivering our first child. Someone finally said once the circle broke, “Go ahead and scream dude…your ankle is broke for God’s sake,” which seemed not only sensible but also appropriate since we all felt like screaming ourselves after witnessing the bloody wreckage.

What compelled him to maintain his composure to the point of convulsing was an embedded view of toughness that demands one never show signs of pain or let on that something is wrong. Growing up in an athletic family, I understood this idea as well as anyone—never, under any circumstances, show an opponent that you’re hurt. Death should be the only event that causes one to miss a practice or sit out a game, and even then you’re guilty until the coroner’s certificate is in hand.

So my background leads me to have high expectations for athletes these days, especially when so much money is paid for what is essentially participation in a game. While it may be reminiscent of “grandpa walking twelve miles in barefoot through three feet of snow”, it is not exaggeration to remind ourselves that “some poor slob making six bucks an hour paid seventy bucks to see you play today…the least you can do is compete through a little bruise.” Fans are fanatics and expect heroes to do heroic things: catch wet balls, hit un-hittable pitches, sink 70 foot putts, play with broken bones. If you’re big enough to be bought at FatHead, you’re big enough to do the impossible—just ask any ticket buying fan for confirmation of this truth.

But there is a point, one we miss on many different fronts these days, where the game becomes more serious than a man’s life, where toughness becomes foolishness, where giving it your all literally means cashing in the rest of your life. Consider guys like Earl Campbell and others who can’t walk without significant aid whether they think it was worth it to keep going long after their body said to stop just so Ticket Buyer Boy would think he is a man. Playing through pain is one thing—playing when your body is broke is entirely another, and we shouldn’t hold it against an athlete for deciding that he sits this one out.

From what I’ve seen of LaDanian Thompson, he isn’t one to avoid hits or take plays off; otherwise, there might be more to say regarding his decision to not play against the Patriots on Sunday. It would certainly be difficult to support a man who abandons his team in the biggest game of the year on a day when they most need his talent on the field. But it shouldn’t be difficult to accept along that sometimes there are limits, in spite of what popular American mythology says, to what a man can do. And sometimes the difference between foolishness and wisdom is knowing when to put pride to the side and take your place on IR.

Leave LaDanian alone. If we catch him dogging it, let him have it with all the gusto of a spurned fan expecting maximum effort. But until then, don’t criticize a man for thinking of life beyond the season and the beyond the game. The potential damage is not worth it.

Tony Dungy announced today that he will return for his 7^th season as coach of the Indianapolis Colts next year, a decision which undoubtedly caused a sigh of relief among Colt followers everywhere. It’s pretty hard to criticize Dungy as either a coach or a man, and since his first six years with the Colts produced a 73-23 record, no season with less than 10 wins, six post-season appearances culminating in last year snatching a Super Bowl trophy for the city of Indianapolis, he might get more grace from rabid fans when his teams don’t bring home a ring every year. True enough, once the bar of expectation gets raised as high as it is in Colts country these days, the populace won’t be satisfied with simply winning lots of games—it’s AFC Championships and Super Bowls or “what have you done for me lately” will take down even an icon like Dungy.

Nevertheless, his announcement probably stiffened at least a few listeners because of an admission he made that will undoubtedly garner negative attention. Not the assertion that his decision rested primarily on receiving his families’ blessing, nor his humble willingness to be replaced by one of his assistants should the time be right.

Rather, his unapologetic stance that he views his work with the team as a “ministry” probably already has ACLU folks looking for a way to stop the man before he goes any further. What some suspected all along, that Dungy is really only in the business of football to proselytize his conservative religious views and to push Jesus down players and fans throat, will only be strengthened by his matter of fact implication of his role on the team as “minister.”

Plenty of writers these days strive against the mixing of sport and religion and see them as oil and water—they just don’t or at least shouldn’t mix--and in many cases rightly so. We’re well beyond the point of annoyed when it comes to players kneeling at the end zone altar, pointing to the heavens after exceptional plays, answering every post-game question by smuggling Jesus into answers that have nothing to do with the interview. While it’s probably silly to be offended by such innocuous behavior, it is nevertheless annoying to watch as a fan, whether one considers themselves religious or not.

But I don’t think this is what Dungy has in mind when he talks of his coaching role as a ministry. I think he understands his platform as an opportunity to serve others, to comfort other grieving parents who have lost children, to help young men who are smothered with themselves see a world that’s bigger than the suffocating and intoxicating culture of professional football, to use his financial resources to make a difference in other’s lives, to make a positive difference in the league where he’s worked his entire adult life.

While we might all be offended by gestures into heaven after scores and genuflecting sack artists, we should probably all equally be comforted that a man like Tony Dungy exists in the world of pro football, a man who beyond comprehension has a genuine category called “ministry defined by service” in his vocabulary/vocational decision making template. The league will be worse off without him.