WT: Out with the old, already!

[bubba9497]

Out with the old, already!

By Patrick Hruby

THE WASHINGTON TIMES

http://www.washtimes.com/sports/20040115-112506-7320r.htm

First Jack McKeon. Then Joe Gibbs. Now Lenny Wilkens. Never mind throwback jerseys — old coaches are the sports world's latest retro rage, with everyone from Dick Vermeil to Hubie Brown taking one last dip in the Gatorade Bath of Youth. Sooner or later, they all come back.

And quite frankly, this is a serious problem.

While the trend toward older coaches is in some ways laudable — for one, these fogies know how to win; more importantly, they're easing the burden on the already-strained Social Security system — the overall effect is anything but positive. Every McKeon victory cigar, every Vermeilian tear, every self-effacing Gibbsian chuckle proves you're never too old and wrinkled, let alone incontinent, to get back in the ring and mix it up.

Good for them. Bad for the rest of us.

Retirement used to mean discount matinees and Craftmatic adjustable beds, idling away the autumn of one's years in a peaceful, easy manner. Pick up the grandkids. Stop for ice cream. Drive under the speed limit. After a lifetime of thankless toil, they deserve it. Heck, they've earned the right to wear golf pants year-round. And use that Clapper.

Thanks to Gibbs and Co., however, all of that has changed. Now, the Golden Years entail snazzy suits and packed news conferences. Followed by stashing a cot in your new/old office. If cataracts don't fry their eyes, eight-hour film study sessions will. Talk about a lousy precedent. The graceful retirees of yesteryear — like John Wooden, only the greatest college hoops coach of all time — have been replaced by workaholics who can't let go. And don't much want to.

After all, what else could motivate a man like Gibbs? He's already won three Super Bowls, then enjoyed near-equal success during a second career in NASCAR. What does he do a decade from now, sign up for the first manned mission to Mars? Vermeil and Brown had cushy television gigs. Wasn't enough. Wilkens is the winningest coach in NBA history. Like Emmitt Smith, he's still looking to pad his numbers. Prodded by a cadre of hard-charging geezers to shame "Cocoon," perceptions are shifting. And ordinary people who hate their jobs — who can't wait to hang it up, the better to work on the Sunday crossword puzzle — are flat out of luck.

First and foremost, pity today's younger coaches. No phony front-office consulting jobs or once-a-week college football broadcasts for them. They're not going anywhere. Not for a long, long time. Gentlemen, put away your golf clubs: If Vermeil can work into his late 60s, surely Tampa Bay's impish Jon Gruden can labor into his 80s (and perhaps longer, provided the Bucs fill a sideline cooler with prune juice). Likewise, a relatively green fellow like Philadelphia's Andy Reid could have five or six more decades of 100-hour workweeks in him. Especially if weight loss research continues to advance.

As coaching codgers raise the bar of expected athletic career length, the outside world is bound to follow suit. After all, we already snap up their motivational books. Well, maybe not Brian Billick's. Still, the potential consequences are chilling: Female flight attendants serving peanuts and cranapple juice into their 90s. Computer makers having to to manufacture CPU's that don't become obsolete after six months. The PGA launching a cart-only Senior Senior circuit. Children able to catch their rock n' roll grandparents live on tour, a phenomenon currently restricted to the Rolling Stones.

Ultimately, future scientists may thaw out and reanimate our cryogenically preserved remains — but only to play left field for the Boston Red Sox, or perhaps pitch in on a deadline project, so the unfrozen leftovers of our former boss won't have to spring for overtime.

Inadvertently or otherwise, McKeon and his never-say-quit ilk are ensuring a gainfully-employed future that looks a whole lot like the painfully-employed present. Which is to say, tedious and tiresome. Still, it doesn't figure to be all bad: If Gibbs' $5 million-plus annual salary is any indication, we can expect generous financial compensation for our octogenarian efforts. Good thing, too, since an insolvent Medicare won't come close to covering our prescription drug costs. And that's just for Viagra and Botox.

Of course, the Browns of the world aren't in it for the money. At least not entirely. They're back to compete. Teach. Win. They're in for the love of the game. Not me. If I'm still writing this in 80 years — foregoing my divine right to an old age filled with church bingo and long walks through the shopping mall — it won't be for the thrill. It'll be for the cash.

[BillyKilmer]

Originally posted by bubba9497

Out with the old, already!

By Patrick Hruby

My guess is That Hruby is a 24 year old pimple faced kid who thinks he should own his newspaper by now