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So long. After 42 years spent in press boxes, locker rooms, sidelines and anywhere else athletes gather, I've decided to quit writing a daily column while I'm ahead.
But not so fast, Skippy. After a bit of a break, I'm going to sneak back in under the guise of a freelancer writing a column a week.
It's been some ride and my cups runneth over. World Cups, Stanley Cups, Grey Cups, Memorial Cups, Vanier Cups and Allan Cups weave into Olympic Games, Super Bowls, World Series and all manner of championships and trophies on grass, artificial turf, asphalt, ice, snow, water and canvas.
After thousands of competitions and millions of type-written words, one seeks a phrase, a word, to encapsule it.
The word is truth.
For all its occasional foibles, the essence of sport is truth. An athlete either can or can't do the job.
Unlike some other walks of life, athletes cannot hide. Their performances dictate with almost unerring accuracy where they fit in the hierarchy of fun and games.
Team players might be able to camouflage deficiencies in the short term, but in the end, all athletes are accountable.
There are about 4,000 major league professional athletes in a North American population of about 330 million. Almost exclusively, the ones who are there deserve to be there, while the many more striving in lesser competition seek to join them.
B.S. may baffle brains in the boardroom, office or plant, but it has yet to hit a tough 3-2 pitch, stop a breakaway or duck a knockout punch.
There is another endearing quality accompanying that immutable truth. A sense of fair play exists in sport that often is absent in other spheres of life.
Oh sure, there are villains and windbags and egotists of mountainous proportions. Athletes will do almost anything to get an edge, legal or otherwise.
But beneath it all, when push comes to shove, win or lose, the true athlete or coach can feel nothing but respect for the opponent who has extracted from him or her their very utmost performance.
It has been an eventful 42-year gig, one that started at CP briefly, moved to the Toronto Star for 17 years and then on to The London Free Press for most of the last 25.
First off, interviewing the superstars has been memorable -- Muhammad Ali, Bobby Orr, Wayne Gretzky, Gordie Howe, Bobby Hull, Mario Lemieux, Pele, George Best, Rocket Richard, Rocky Marciano and so many more all had an innate sort of grace the greatest athletes share. Hey, Pele and Marciano remembered me two years and a million other interviewers later and I'm not that memorable.
Funny, as one looks back, it's the unusual that comes to mind. The typewriter that fell apart on deadline in Vancouver after a Maple Leafs-Canucks game. Former NHL badman Reggie Fleming threatening to kill me, mistaking me for another sportswriter.
Quarterback John Henry Jackson getting arrested by the FBI on the field prior to a game was a bit odd. So was finding singer Connie Francis chatting to me from an adjoining seat at ringside during a Las Vegas fight. Or seeing actor Telly Savalas standing behind me in a food lineup at the Montreal Olympics swimming venue.
There were the dead bodies in ditches during a soccer training camp held during a coup in El Salvador. Getting into a punch-up with a Moscow cop during the 1980 Olympics was rather memorable. Driving (and listening to) Ali back to his hotel or sitting on his bunk at training camp hearing his endless oratory is hard to forget.
So are non-sports assignments.
Most sports hacks at one time or another are pressed into them. This resulted in covering the aftermath of a deadly Florida tornado while at Detroit Tigers spring training and the wedding of Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson before the Edinburgh Commonwealth Games (best media seat at Westminster Cathedral because of a rapport struck with the accreditation chief after kidding about a ringside seat. Prophetic, considering the marriage).
For a guy who as a kid wanted to be a foreign correspondent to see the world, it has worked out remarkably well. Sports took your scribe to most of the U.S. states and Canadian provinces, England, Ireland, Scotland, France, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Argentina, Brazil, El Salvador, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Hawaii and Tahiti, all without hearing a gun go off (well, there was a bit of shooting at night in my Atlanta Olympics neighbourhood).
The sports platform also has led to some travel writing, which this year has included a safari in Kenya, a trek through the Scottish Highlands and a sun-filled Bahamas tour.
But sport dominates.
It's the place where lifelong friendships were forged. The sports media is, as it should be, on the periphery, but remains part of the sports community, reporting, analysing and hopefully bringing some depth and richness to the many individual stories.
If one is lucky, one has been able to help some careers along the way and given some push to worthy fundraising projects while trying to inform and entertain a reading public four times a week. Dealing with achievers almost never hurts one's outlook. Nor, when you are heading for old cootdom, does dealing with young, upbeat people.
Each one is a story and more, each day a new learning experience.
Any time with Howe or Hull was well-spent. Don Cherry off-camera is the same as when he's on and agree with him or not, he's a lot of fun. Same with all London coaches from the Mustangs' Larry Haylor, Clarke Singer and recently retired Craig Boydell to the high school guys, the Knights and the soccer folks and all the rest of the Forest City sports community.
The memories are indelible. From the mid-1960s until his last bout in 1981, watching Ali from ringside dominates.
The Gretzky-Edmonton era stands out (the best: Gretzky scoring, his back to the net, by deflecting Jari Kurri's hard pass from the blue-line between his legs and over the goalie's shoulder from the faceoff circle). His bringing Lemieux up into his stratosphere during the 1987 Canada Cup win over the Soviet Union was something to behold.
And any ink-stained wretch would appreciate Gretzky telling me beforehand what he would say after a Stanley Cup-winning game to inject some life to a deadline-pressured column from Edmonton. The guy knew every single thing about hockey, including how to cover it.
What of the most exciting time in the history of London sports, the Knights' epic run to their first Memorial Cup title? The fun was not only in witnessing the saga unfold, it also was in seeing the mounting joy of the young players and their devoted fans during the biggest buzz ever to hit town.
I will not miss the tyranny of the deadline, which at times requires you to write a 700-word column in less than five minutes after a game. It rarely reads well, but it can be done.
Neither will I miss the folks of London's sports community. I'll still be seeing them on a regular basis.
So what does a guy do with the luxury of more free time? Well, he rides his bicycle, does some work on his 1946 Ford convertible, completes the many home projects that had spectacular starts but fell short of the finish line. He considers writing a book or two, brushes up on his French, tosses in some volunteer work, travels, writes some features and spoils his grandchildren.
This week, the retiring Boydell noted, "It's good to leave when you still love doing it," and that's about right. Especially when you still get to do a bit of it.
With any luck, it will be the start of a long goodbye.