I Don't Want To Play Anymore

10-16-89

Perspective:

It was a pretty good week for Cobber sports. The football team cleared a major hurdle in their title chase with a win at Carleton. The women's cross country team did well despite being short handed. And basketball practice opened for both the men and women.

But, behind the scenes, Cobber coaches were having to face the disappointment of hearing good players say they just don't want to play any more. Not an epidemic, mind you. But it happens more often than our old values have conditioned us to expect.

It is a problem that has a host of aspects, not the least of which is whether it should even be called a "problem" at all. But, whatever we choose to call it, the process of players ending their athletic careers short of graduation, and without being "cut," gives us all a chance to reflect.

In a way, this is the flip side of the agony coaches face when having to tell an eager player that he or she is just not good enough. In this scenario, the coach wants the player but the player doesn't want any more of what the coach is selling.

Concordia is, obviously, not unique in having to deal with these situations. Indeed, Concordia seems blessed with a relative bounty of hopeful young athletes. While many comparable non-scholarship schools struggle to fill rosters, Concordia has 18 varsity sports, along with several junior varsity programs, involving over 400 athletes per year, in a student body of under 3,000.

That group shells out roughly 4 million dollars annually in tuition for the privilege of attending the school and getting a chance to be a varsity college athlete. How many of those athletes would be attending this college if the athletic opportunity was not here is a topic for debate. Clearly, many of them see their college studies and their athletic opportunity as an integrated package.

But, despite this success, we still, from time to time, have talented players who decide they just don't want to play anymore. It happens on the teams of winning coaches as well as those that are struggling.

It's hard for the "quitting player" to be the first to tell the coach the news. Players contemplating such early retirement usually have a relationship with the coach stretching back to high school, when the coach first recruited them. And, even if that relationship has soured considerably, it's still difficult for the player to come right out and tell the coach. So, they run the idea past their friends, usually teammates, or, to be more exact, ex-teammates. They want to know how goofy the idea sounds when said out loud. And they often want to let the coach get the news first in the form of a "leak." Of course, the people who are told usually squeal the news to the coach. After all, the leakers think, maybe the coach can talk the wavering player out of his or her decision.

Deep in their hearts, and despite all their X's and O's, coaches know that the key to being a good coach is having good players. It's difficult for coaches, like anybody else, to not be driven by selfish thoughts when hearing of a loss. The better the player, the more the loss hurts.

It is easy for a coach to assume a twisted sense of ownership over a young athlete's life and talents. For most coaches, the news is greeted like stages of dying.

First there is denial, then there is anger, then, eventually, grudgingly, acceptance.

But Cobber coaches, steeped as we are in the religious and academic values of the institution, usually, upon receiving the news that a good player has decided to hang-it-up, react with calm, perspective, and respect for the thoughtful decision of the young adult involved.

Something like, "What a piece of pond scum. After all I've done for her she treats me like this. I never liked her anyway. We can get along just fine without quitters like that. She's abandoned the one family on campus that cares about her. She has let down her parents, her school, her teammates, her God, her country, and Western civilization. She's no better than a defector and is gutless and lazy besides. She's going to regret this for the rest of her life." And so on.

There are, of course, perfectly rational reasons for people ending their careers in sport before they have collided with the limits to which their talent can take them.

Sometimes, the player-coach relationship has deteriorated so much that all the fun has vanished from a game the player used to love. Like in a divorce, there is usually plenty of blame to go around and little is served by dwelling on it.

More often, the pressure for quality study time, financial demands, and even the need to spend more time with friends and lovers are cited.

But most of these reasons for quitting have a certain cosmetic quality. If an athlete really wanted to play, there would be a way to find time for the other pressing demands in their life. It is that "wanting to play" that can sometimes prove so illusive.

Player "burnout" has become a bit of a catch-all to describe the motivation for these early retirements, some of which are indeed motivated by sloth and fear.

But the term is not wholly without meaning. "Losing the fire" to compete and strive occurs with stunning frequency.

That passion is not something we can all simply summon up on command. The "fire in the belly" that we coaches look for in our recruiting does not always sustain itself. And, when it goes out, we can rarely reignite it in an athlete, despite our finest oratory or cruelest chiding.

Athletes know when burnout has happened to them. Some, through sheer God-given talent, can play on with some success, never fully letting on to others the emptiness they feel in victory or the lack of sadness they suffer in defeat. But most of the good athletes will not play like that. They would rather not play at all.

They have lost a measure of what makes life worth living, that passion to do better. They should be wished nothing but the best as they try to rekindle it in other endeavors.

These pages are maintained by Jerry Pyle pyle@cord.edu. These articles are copyrighted © and may not be published or reproduced without the express permission of Jerry Pyle.

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