The Holy Grail of American Sport.
Body armour, helmets, full contact sport – The American Game
Having won three Super Bowls, been four times ‘All First Team All Pro’, Rob Gronkowski announces his retirement at the great age of – wait for it – 29 years old!
What! 29 nine years old, wow! Maybe it’s the word ‘retire’ that catches my eye.
I’ve been on-line trying to research the different ages people can play professional sport at, and for that matter what might well be the appropriate retirement age. Not as easy as I thought, it’s a bit of a challenge. There are so many variables: age, physical and mental ability, emotional development, strength, mobility, intelligence, stamina, coordination, ability to recover from injury, endurance, desire, capacity and how many chocolate biscuits can you eat with your tea.
Of course the choice of sport also impacts upon the age you can start and how long you may continue to take part.
What is sport?
Noun. an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature, as racing, baseball, tennis, golf, bowling, wrestling, boxing, hunting, fishing, etc.
Sport England accepts that darts is a sport – but wait…
“But darts won’t be a sport until the players need to do more than bend their right arms and wear a path between oche and board. That’s why snooker, too, is a game, no matter what you might hear about players needing to be physically fit. They do – but only to be more mentally alert. … That’s why golf is a sport.“
Oh dear not as straight forward as I thought.
I wonder what Rob Gronkowski is going to do with the rest of his life; hopefully he has many years in front of him. Whatever he chooses to do in this new stage of life I hope he will be successful. Retirement is not my favourite word. Retirement speaks of the end, a conclusion to a part of life and it can affect so many other areas of life. I prefer to see it as a change of pace, the beginning of new adventures.
When I became a Christian I had, apparently, made a lifelong commitment to follow Jesus. Nobody informed me that there was no retirement package in sight, no gold watch for services rendered; no, this was a job on the mission field for life. It’s a bit of a shock to realise that there is no age barrier. You can start young and go on for ages, no retirement age or date in sight. Then we see that being one of Gods disciples means that the message we carry (God’s love, Jesus death and resurrection, the saving of souls) is for everyone, at any time, any place, any day, week, month or year.
The penny dropped; So its 24/7 – okay, I’m cool and good to go. Perhaps that’s what I meant about an adventure?
My faith is a living faith and in the Bible
“For we are Gods workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”
Retirement, what’s that? There are stacks of things to go and do, whether you’re twenty nine or ninety nine (and forget the gold watch!)
Image Credit: Wade Austin Ellis
