Retirement no easy decision for even the best athletes

There was Billie Jean King, freshly inducted into the Rogers Cup Hall of Fame, expounding on one of the greatest regrets of her life: that she quit the game of tennis too soon.

``You know, I was taught to go out on top," the tennis great said Wednesday. ``I did. It was a mistake."

The fact that King exited stage left 30 years ago and apparently still loses sleep over that decision despite a pretty successful three decades gives you a pretty good idea of how difficult it is for pro athletes to choose the right time to depart the scene. As we have seen far too many times, the retirements often don't last and the comebacks seldom turn out well.

The sad fact is that those decisions are reserved for a select few athletes, most of whom do not get to decide when they go gently into that good night. The vast majority of pro athletes are told when to leave and usually asked not to let the door hit them on the way out.

Then they are reincarnated as TV analysts or either show up on late-night TV as product pitchmen or in the bankruptcy notices.

Some simply won't go away. They hang on long past their best-before date, tarnishing their reputations as their creaky knees and aching joints reduced superstars to spare parts. Often they did it to hang on to the best job they'll ever have, often it was ego that barred them from seeing what was obvious to everyone else.

Who could erase the painful memories of how Willie Mays, Allen Iverson, Terrell Owens and Guy Lafleur ended their stellar careers? The Say Hey Kid became the Say Hey Old Man, The Answer became The Question. (Technically, Iverson still hasn't retired, which only emphasizes the difficulty of the situation.)

Then there are the select few, the players so great that they get to call the shots. There are few who would disagree that the likes of Jim Brown, Barry Sanders, Justine Henin, Bjorn Borg and Steffi Graf all left a few championship trophies and MVPs on the table when they took their final curtain call. They also left legions of fans feeling abandoned and legions of critics wondering why they would deprive the world of their talents.

Stepping off the big stage for good isn't an easy thing for even those lucky athletes. Henin tried an ill-fated comeback on the women's tennis tour. NFL running back Tiki Barber tried a comeback five years after hanging up his cleats. Like King, they felt they still had something left.

They were wrong.

Maybe all aging athletes should follow the lead of the guys playing on the tennis legends tour, which is making a stop at the Rogers Cup in Toronto this week. Retirees like John McEnroe, Pete Sampras, Jim Courier and Andy Roddick gather every month or so to give the fans some giggles and a few glimpses of what used to be.

It keeps the fans happy and satisfies their desire for one more moment in the spotlight.