Once you retire for good, it’s time to settle in and figure out how to pass the time. Your life is now perfect, comfortable, and completely devoid of conflict. But you’ll soon discover that you now have nothing left to strive for. You’ll come to realize that the pleasure was in the journey and not the destination. What’s left to accomplish? Even if you did set new goals for yourself, you now lack the physical skills to attain them. Just what the fuck are you supposed to do?
Fear not, for I have a very simple solution: drink. Drink every day, without regard to your health and / or social mores. You’d be surprised at how well a scotch on the rocks at 11:00 a.m. breaks up the day. Alcohol was invented thousands of years ago by ancient tribes of people, people hell-bent on figuring out a way to numb the pain of a life devoid of television and Chap Stick. You too can use it to block out the existential dread of life’s denouement. Mickey Mantle did it. Joe Namath did it. Brett Favre will almost certainly do it. Now it’s your turn. I suggest getting hooked on wine. Many former athletes become oenophiles as a way of dressing up their alcoholism. Saying you have a passion for booze makes you sound like you have a disease. Saying you have a passion for wine makes you sound like a dude who races yachts.
If alcoholism isn’t for you, consider these other retirement pursuits.
BECOME A TV ANALYST. Ever criticize someone without actually criticizing them? Then ESPN has a studio position open for you immediately. Shit, you don’t even have to know proper diction. Lou Holtz works as an analyst, and I remain convinced that man has a nonvisible cleft palate.
The beauty of being an analyst is that, as a former athlete, you are presumed to have a deep knowledge of your sport. And even if you don’t, even if you’re like Merril Hoge and possess only a partially functional temporal lobe, you have an automatic comeback to any naysayer. And that is this: “Hey, asshole, if you never played my sport, then you can’t possibly begin to understand what I’m talking about. And you certainly aren’t in a position to criticize anyone out on the field, because they’d knock you on your ass.” Check and mate. That is bulletproof logic that will keep you in the broadcasting chair for a very long time, no matter how asinine your commentary may be. Ask Tim McCarver.
BECOME A COACH. Are you fucking crazy? You saw how hard those guys work. Christ, some of them don’t even shower. Look at Bill Belichick. That guy won multiple Super Bowls. Does he look happy to you? Hell no. He looks like someone just pooped in his coffee. And you don’t want to fuck with those nanobots.
PLAY VIDEO GAMES. Video games are becoming more and more realistic with every new platform. Christ, I wish I had more time to play them. Instead, I have to do shit like work, or do chores, or host “get-togethers.” Fuck. But you, my friend, are retired. You don’t have to work, and you can afford a maid. So buy yourself a copy of Hitman 2 and go to town. Or pop in Madden 2036 years from now and play as your video-game self. After all, your avatar never ages. It’s like you’re still in the league, only you don’t have to work hard to achieve success. That’s a win-win in my book.
HIT THE LECTURE CIRCUIT. As a retired athlete, you can fetch upward of $10,000 for a single public speaking engagement, and sometimes more than that. Why? Because Fortune 500 companies all across the country are constantly holding off-sites. What’s an off-site, you ask? An off-site is when employees are torn from their families and shuttled out to a business park in some godforsaken exurb to sit in soul-crushing, team-building seminars for three days straight. It’s like training camp, only with a 50 percent suicide rate.
Companies need something, anything, to help boost worker morale in between boring off-site meetings all day and getting ass shitfaced at Ruby Tuesday later in the evening. That’s where you come in. You played a sport. You know how to motivate people, especially the payroll department of a local industrial grain supplier. Best of all, you don’t even have to be good at public speaking. You can be a lisping stutterer and it won’t matter. All that matters is that you are mildly famous, and that you’re giving those folks a new person to look at after being trapped all day long in a Residence Inn conference room with the same motherfuckers they see day in and day out. You’ll be greeted as a liberator.
PLAY GOLF. Golf is the refuge of countless ex-athletes, and it’s easy to see why. Golf is extremely time-consuming, and it lets you continue to indulge your borderline obsessive thirst for competition. Best of all, golf is the kind of game in which you can work tirelessly to improve, only to experience setback after setback. It doesn’t matter how many lessons you take, or what kind of driver you use. Oh, you may break ninety one day. But the next day you’re right back in the shitter, five-putting from ten feet away BECAUSE THE FUCKING GREENSKEEPER DIDN’T DO A FRESH CUT IN THE LATE MORNING! THAT FUCKING IRISH COCKSUCKER!