My Question of the Day: Some people just don’t know when to let it go. It’s unfortunate, but it’s true. We see athletes well past their prime playing years still trying to make a team roster somewhere, anywhere that will have him/her. Thinking along those lines, should professional sports have mandatory retirement ages?

My 2 Cents: This is tough to contemplate. Having never been a professional athlete, it’s easy for me to sit on my rump and wax philosophical about when a professional, athletic career should end.

I asked this question with the Army in mind. At the age of 40,  all soldiers are required to take what is called an “over 40 physical.” It’s the same type of physical soldiers are required to take when they first join the Army, and it assesses your readiness to deploy. If you’re incapable of performing the obligations of your job, the Army does what is called a “medical board.” You are discharged for medical reasons, and you receive disability benefits if you qualify.

It wouldn’t be a bad idea for professional sports to have something like this in place, as well. I can’t say that all leagues should have the same age requirements, but an age should be set where a complete and full physical is done to determine whether an athlete should be medically retired or allowed to continue to compete. I think this is especially true for high-contact sports like American football and boxing.

Sometimes the idea of quitting will keep a player playing. If someone else takes that weight off the athlete’s shoulders, maybe retiring won’t seem like a failure.

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

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RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

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3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.

My Question of the Day: Often in the sports world, we hear about this or that athlete being accused of “doping” or being proven to have used performance-enhancing substances that are banned. Should all regulations be lifted against steroids and other performance-enhancing substances and athletes just allowed to do what they feel they need to do to be at the top of their chosen field?

My 2 Cents: I’m going to have to agree with everyone else and say that regulations should NOT be lifted against steroids and other performance-enhancing substances. When I think about this happening, I think about this small community of athletes who become almost monstrous and sub-human. That may be stretching it, but there would be people who would have no limits.

Natural is always better, even in athletics.

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Take a few moments to check out the tweets from Twitter on this subject:

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JoshDamage no you wanna preserve the integrity of the Sport. It shouldn’t be a contest between genetically altered freaks

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The commentary doesn’t have to end!

Please feel free to continue to add your comments below.

———

RULES FOR COMMENTS

1. DO NOT include links in your post. There is a place for you to include one link when you’re filling out the Name/Email/Website information. Comments that include links will be deleted.

2. If your post is obviously irrelevant to the question at hand, it will be deleted. This is a tactic spammers use to simply show up on blogs.

3. Please keep your comments respectful. We can agree to disagree without attacking each other.