I don’t get it. I never do. And I don’t like it. I am an Armstrong fan but I think all top athletes who retire (Lance, MJ, Brett, etc.) should stay retired. When you hang up your cleats/shoes/whatever you wear, please also hang up your ego. Your former fan base and yourself will be all the better for it, because, let’s face it, you retired when you could see the downhill portion of your career curve. What makes you think that curve suddenly levels off or starts going upwards? Maybe in some “sports” like golf and car racing but even there, there are few cases of successful comebacks (Niki Lauda in F1 comes to mind but that’s it—full disclosure: I couldn’t name a retired famous golfer who unretired if you hit me upside the head with a 7 iron…that’s how much I care about golf). And it is very likely that some of the meany reasons we loved/worshipped you and were inspired by you in the first place is that you had something special that is probably gone forever and that you had the sense to retire before you lost it. So why give us all the ammunition we need to think any less of you. Oh yeah, I forgot, ego (or, worse, money needs). Or boredom…which shows an incredible lack of imagination and intelligence, which in turn makes me think less of you. You can’t win (I mean that literally and figuratively)…stay retired.
