When Does The Dream Die?

I think I was about seven years old when I finally realized that my mom saying I “could do anything I wanted to, in life, if I put my mind to it” didn’t exactly include me being able to fly like Superman.

Hundreds of hours spent thrusting my arms in the air and jumping off the top rail of our deck was all for not. My longest flight ever was clocked at under three seconds.

I can even remember asking my dad what he would do if I flew straight up in the house and busted out through the roof into the open blue sky ala the “Man of Steel”.

He replied, without blinking an eye, “make you fix the roof”.

Eventually reality sets in. Eventually the dream died.

Unfortunately everything in life dies. It’s a certainty we don’t even question, for life that is. But dreams have a way of holding on a lot longer than they are supposed to, or maybe even should. Sometimes dreams just won’t die.

It wouldn’t be very sensible for me now, at 37, to climb up on that deck railing at my parents house and give flying another shot.

But for athletes, the fine line between dreams and reality isn’t so easily defined. Athletes have grown up doing things most fans consider “super” for years. They run like speeding bullets, leap buildings in a single bound. They throw footballs 75 yards and beam baseballs 100 mph.

While my dream as a kid was to fly, their dream was to win championships because they could fly.

When you are able to achieve what few other people can, or have, then who are they to tell you when your dreams should die?

Brett Favre was released by the New York Jets on April 28, 2009 and is literally free to sign with any team.

Despite what anyone says, I have to believe that he at least entertained a passing thought in his head about what team he would like to take snaps for this season. Would it be the Minnesota Vikings, with a dominant defense, all-world running back Adrian Peterson, and newly acquired speed demon Percy Harvin? He would certainly be an upgrade over their off-season pick up, Sage Rosenfels.

Would he call Jeff Fisher of the Tennessee Titans, a team that had the best record in the league last year and finally seems to have all the pieces of the puzzle to make a serious run at the Super Bowl for a couple of years? Kerry Collins is solid, but this is still Brett Favre we are talking about.

Or does he sit back down at the kitchen table, pick up the sports page, drink his coffee and spend the next few minutes trying to  figure out a way to dodge Deanna’s “honey do list” for the day.

My guess is he chooses the latter. But even then, having watched him play football with the passion he did for all those years, it won’t be as easy as it sounds.

While there were those that ridiculed him for his on again off again retirement saga each year, and I was certainly one of them at times, no one has the right to tell you when your dream dies.

I watched my sports hero, Dan Marino, play football in Miami for 17 years before his time would come to an end. I remember that day as if I had lost a loved one. He would not play another down for the Miami Dolphins again, but his dream wasn’t necessarily over.

Still without a Super Bowl, and still with a fire inside him that few will ever have, Dennis Green head coach of the Minnesota Vikings at the time, pleaded with Marino to come play for the Vikings. Green promised concessions of extra days off during the week for Marino to spend with his family. The Vikings had a young Randy Moss and an accomplished Chris Carter. It was a very tempting offer to Marino.

He would reveal in interviews later that he would wake up one morning with intent to sign with the Vikings, then wake up the next morning saying he just couldn’t do it. That process would repeat itself for over a week.

I was so confused. I wanted him to do it, but I also wanted him to retire a lifelong Dolphin.

Playing 17 years for one organization says a lot about one’s character and resolve. Wanting to give the Super Bowl one more shot in Minnesota said a lot about his drive and desire to compete.

Thank God it wasn’t my decision and I told myself I would be at peace with whatever choice he made. He retired a Dolphin and was in the Pro Football Hall of Fame five years later.

I certainly couldn’t have blamed him if he chose to try it one more time. His dream was to win a Super Bowl.

But as fans, we don’t want to see out heroes hobbling around on the field as a shell of their former selves. Willie Mays stumbling out of the batter’s box in a Met’s uniform is blasphemous to most fans. Joe Namath struggling for four games in a Rams uniform before his body couldn’t take anymore is not how he should be remembered, and probably won’t be.

While it’s easy to say we don’t want to see our great athletes struggle in the twilight of their careers, let’s remember that it is their dream that is dying, not ours. It is their fight to keep a hold of something that is slipping through their hands.

Though I joined in the chuckles at the thought of Brett Favre coming out of retirement again, I would salute his fortitude if he did. I believe there is a part of us all that want to see a real life aging Roy Hobbs circle the bases in his last at bat, under a shower of broken scoreboard lights, having just won the pennant.

So here’s to you Brett. Should you decide that the dream of playing football is not quite dead yet, I may just go back over to my parent’s house and hop up on that deck rail one more time.

Just to make sure.