News Jimmy Bartel retirement - how was it handled?

[Vdubs]

Any player who is reluctant (which seems to be 90% of players, very few appear to go willingly and on good terms with their clubs) to hang up his boots is always going to perceive retirement as 'badly' (i.e forced out) handled by the coach/club.

I have to say though that I'm a little disappointed with how some Geelong champs in their twilight of their careers have 'handled' their retirement, with the exceptions being Enright and Scarlett who went out on top or somewhat near it without any dramas.

Due to a medical condition my childhood dreams of being a pro athlete never came to fruition (had I had a clean bill of health I'd probably would't have come close anyway, guess I'll never know lol ) So even though I can't empathize with them, I find it a bit disconcerting when aging champion veterans who are clearly struggling to make an impact on games insist that they still have 'it' (the ability to play at the top level) and feel they're entitled to another contract by their respective clubs.

As a fan I'd like to believe that if I were in their shoes I'd see the writing on the wall and gracefully retire when it's painfully obvious that I'm becoming a liability on the field. However so many champs (who've had long 10+ plus careers earning good coin 500K + p.a.) just come off as desperate, it's almost as if they think they won't find another form of employment once their footy playing days are over.

I'm all for educating young drafted players very early on that playing football is not a 'career' and to treat it as a type of lottery that has the potential to last 10 years. There should be a strong emphasis at every single AFL club about making the transition to 'normal' life throughout their time playing at the highest level in preparation for post footy life.

I get the sense that a lot of footy players think that whatever they earn playing footy should set them up for life and allow them to never work a day in their life again which is utterly preposterous and foolish.

We are simply not the US with a market of 300 million people for every single player to end up retiring as a multi millionaire. Instilling some realistic expectations and common sense from the first day they arrive at a footy club will hopefully reduce this unrealistic sense of entitlement among many Australian pro athletes.

Great post.
I struggle with this sense of entitlement many of our younger Australians have, athletes or not, Your points are spot on.

 

[Danger!Selwood]

He seems to be having a melt due to the pressure building on him now that he's traded the future away for the now and keeps failing in finals. He's starting to be exposed as people look past 2011 to see what he really is, and he's not handling that well at all.

Its funny that you and a handful of others who don't like CS think your views on here hold any relevance outside this forum. They've just signed an extension for Gods sake, he's under zero pressure.

Anyway, the one thing that made Chapman, Johnson and Jimmy such club legends was their competitiveness and their pride. Never wanting to be beaten and filthy when it happened. They all would have hated people telling them their time is up and felt they had more to prove.