With Paul Reid

Latest incidents have delivered to the fore the necessity for athletes to plan correctly for retirement earlier than their profession ends.

With increasingly Jamaican sports activities stars getting the chance to play sports activities professionally, monitor and area, soccer, cricket, basketball, netball, tennis, and many others, the necessity to plan for retirement shouldn’t be missed.

Most sports activities ‘careers’ finish within the mid-30s and with individuals dwelling longer, they’ve possibly one other 50 years to stay after strolling away from competitors.

Simply not turning up for coaching and competitors or ending knowledgeable relationship with a shoe firm and sliding into being a homebody is just not sufficient because the time that was spent getting ready and competing should now be stuffed, and full of significant occasions that may preserve these individuals as centered as they did in honing their craft for thus a few years.

What has additionally confirmed to be true is that many athletes who had loved a sure stage of fame and success can get hooked on the ‘video lights’ and fawning followers and simply going in regards to the mundane actions that us ‘extraordinary people’ must endure in our lower than spectacular lives, is just not for them.

Many former athletes whose each transfer and actions and each quote have been chronicled and reported on for years at the moment are, by and huge, ignored by the plenty, besides for his or her enablers and sycophants.

Final week, our senses have been attacked by a music (and I used the phrase music loosely) video from dash legend Usain Bolt which prompted a remark from dancehall star Popcaan suggesting that the Olympian ought to spend money on somebody with actual expertise for music.

We now have seen Bolt chase his desires of enjoying skilled soccer, a sport he by no means performed significantly at any stage in his life, and few will begrudge him for the perks that fame and cash brings.

Many will say ‘go away him alone, who’s he hurting or whose cash is he spending, definitely not mine.’ However what’s subsequent for the hyperactive Bolt? Making a bid to play for the West Indies or enjoying basketball?

Michael Jordan as soon as famously performed skilled baseball in between stints within the NBA, fulfilling what he stated then was a dream he had as a boy, and who would wish to deny anybody their desires?

Jordan went to baseball within the prime of his athletics profession, not on the finish, and chasing desires is reserved for the filthy wealthy who can indulge their whimsies.

Most retired athletes are too busy fastidiously investing their cash or for probably the most components, going job searching, it is just the huge minority who manages to remain on within the sport, as broadcasters, coaches or sports activities directors.

The latest historical past of sports activities is replete with retired athletes who had made no severe plans for retirement and who’ve discovered it tough to regulate to ‘on a regular basis life,’ which, generally, they should endure for a lot of one other 40 or 50 years, for much longer than their ‘careers’ in sports activities.

Psychologists have stated that the dependancy to fame and a focus might be as dangerous because the dependancy to medication, and a few athletes will do something to remain related or at the least related to their followers.

What else might have led People Carl Lewis and Dennis Rodman, simply two examples, to go to the extent they did to remain related.

Lewis, who received 19 medals on the Olympics and World Championships, is nearly as well-known for his failed makes an attempt at a singing profession and his mangling of the American nationwide anthem in 1993, remains to be a YouTube favorite.

Rodman, one of many best rebounder within the historical past of the NBA and who made enjoying defence engaging, nevertheless, besides for many who noticed him play in his prime, is called an nearly comical character, dressing up in weird outfits and as soon as confirmed up for an autograph session wearing a bridal outfit.

Correct planning for retirement might have prevented these circus-like conditions, and whereas nobody begrudges rich women and men having fun with what they labored very exhausting for, there’s at all times the chance of watering down the model. In years to come back when the following technology searches the Web, what they’ll see is just not the greatness of the individual, however the buffoonery of their post-competition lives.