Monday, April 27, 1998

Some advice for bogus retirees: Quit it!

By Frank Luksa

The Dallas Morning News

(KRT)

DALLAS - Once upon a long-ago training camp, Blaine Nye, starting guard for the Cowboys, announced his retirement as the result of a contract dispute. Nye went home and never wore an NFL uniform again until the next week.

Nye's sudden return sparked a flurry of questions from reporters who harbored mixed emotions about seeing Nye again. On one hand, we were happy Blaine was back. He was an excellent player and brought irreverent humor to a sport that already was beginning to forget how to smile.

"I'm like salt," Blaine once said. "No one remembers the brand they buy."

Nifty quotes made him a favorite with writers. But some also felt duped. Nye had sworn he'd be gone forever or maybe longer. We'd written melancholy tributes about how much the team and town would miss him. We'd not see the likes of him again. It got kinda sappy.

Now here he stood. Nye had to explain why he had come back before anyone got familiar with the notion that he was gone. Blaine had a sheepish answer. It served him well and remains a handy reference for every athlete who has since retracted his swan song.

"You can't take anything I say and chip it in granite," he said.

Reggie White is the latest example of Nye's elastic principle. Retired on Sunday, the Green Bay defensive end activated himself last week on Wednesday in time to read eulogies of how much he meant to the NFL, the Packers and society in general. Before tear-soaked hankies dried, Reggie returned to end a brief period of global gloom.

I have a simple rule to judge whether a retirement threat is real or bogus. If an athlete is old or physically beat up, I usually believe him. Yet that isn't a perfect formula. An exception exists with the guy in Houston who retired from his sport, turned preacher, gained 40 pounds, re-invented a chummy persona and came back to earn millions boxing as George Foreman.

My rule: What are the guy's options for the rest of his life if he quits?

Equipped with this logic, the listener shrugged last summer when Michael Irvin spoke of retiring in prime athletic age. Same when Troy Aikman says one of his off-season thoughts involves whether to continue with the Cowboys. Few know even coach Tom Landry changed his mind about stepping aside before he was forced out.

Landry told president-general manager Tex Schramm during the mid-'80s to prepare a successor for his exit in a few years. Schramm acted on this secret knowledge to huddle with Marty Schottenheimer. Hence Schramm's shock when Landry later said he'd decided to coach on and the meaning of Landry's curious phrase of "as long as Tex will have me."

Motives behind retirements that turn out bogus vary. There may be at first a sincere desire to call it a career. But just as often, the threat is a tease to draw attention and flattery to the noble warrior. Charles Barkley's sixth or seventh flirt with retirement falls into the category of those who use the method to gain ego reinforcement.

If everyone said, go ahead and quit, he'd probably stop talking about it.

False leave-takings can get mawkish. Sugar Ray Leonard's ceremony captured the bad-taste award. It received televised tribute from within a ring with an all-tuxedo cast of sycophants led by Howard Cosell in remorse now that Sugar Ray belonged to the ages. Leonard's still trying to fight something like 10 years later.

I'm told that the nation is held emotional hostage by Michael Jordan and his plans, which might not include playing basketball. There's immense worry that if he doesn't, the world as we know it will shut down as it did during the time of blight when Jordan left the NBA to play baseball.

Too Tall Jones left the Cowboys to box. He came back a year later. Ryne Sandberg's farewell to the Chicago Cubs lasted one season. So did his failed comeback. The Phoenix Suns reached the NBA playoffs the hard way - with a lively ghost at guard, the same Kevin Johnson who retired less than 12 months ago. And so on through Larry Holmes, Muhammad Ali, Bjorn Borg and many another.

I submit two remedies to reduce the tiring instances of false retirements. First, the guy who says he's quitting posts bond. If he comes back, he pays everyone who attended the so-long rites. The other is to make this pledge: If we promise to miss you, will you go away?

(Frank Luksa is a sports columnist for the Dallas Morning News. Write to him at: Dallas Morning News, Communications Center, Dallas, Texas 75265.)

(c) 1998, The Dallas Morning News.

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