All these years later, the Old Coach’s maxim still rings in the ear: “Winners never quit; quitters never win.” The second half holds up, but the first clause is plainly incorrect. Everyone quits eventually. It may be involuntary. It may be in defeat or, worse yet, disgrace. But, as I’ve reminded myself and colleagues many times, “Everything ends sometime. The question is, how do you want it to end?”
A year’s end prompts reflection on announcements in the preceding 12 months of important careers drawing to a close, and on a mix of admirable and regrettable exits. With no pretense of having made a careful tabulation, one has the impression that graceful, well-prepared, well-timed departures are outnumbered by their opposite. A scan of our most visible sectors provides ample examples of each.
Let’s start on the positive side. Doug McMillon said he would be signing off at Walmart after a stellar decade-plus run in which he navigated a fast-changing technology environment, saw sales grow by about 45 percent and the stock price triple. Warren Buffett, consistent with his entire career, also went out in style. He planned well ahead, tested and groomed multiple possible successors, and left while his enterprise was in strong shape.
Clayton Kershaw delighted not just us lifelong Los Angeles Dodgers fans but baseball lovers everywhere by stepping out on top: an 11-2 season capped by a second straight World Series title.
Coming close to ideal are retirements near if not quite at the top of an all-star run. One could conclude that Nancy Pelosi danced one song too long. The former House speaker could have stepped down after securing Joe Biden the presidency and before losing her Democratic majority. But she remains in the Tom Brady/Michael Jordan category; a so-so last season doesn’t detract from a Hall of Fame record.
The nation’s congressional gerontocracy houses too many members now well past their “best used by” dates. On the other hand, I for one am glad that Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) did not retire when health problems tempted him; the Senate would have been deprived of one of its few contrarian, independent thinkers. And even welcome, age-appropriate departures can be spoiled, as in the too-clever-by-three-fourths attempt by Rep. Jesús “Chuy” García (D-Illinois) to rig his succession for a staffer.
Regrettably, notably happy endings are at least matched by more wistful ones. For every Kershaw or Peyton Manning, whose last game was a Super Bowl victory in 2016, there is a Willie Mays, whose arguably GOAT status was tainted by a .211 last season.
For every entertainer, like Clint Eastwood, Betty White, Morgan Freeman, who somehow kept their mojo through their golden years, there are many more — Jerry Lewis, Steven Seagal, Mickey Rooney — who lingered onstage for some wince-inducing last acts.
Every time we witness one of those, I think back to the rule I enforced on the four Daniels girls while shooting hoops in the driveway: No dinner until you make your last shot. Too many of my idols went out on an air ball. They lingered and became illustrations of my later formulation, “Better a year too soon than a day too late.”
Long ago, working for President Ronald Reagan, I was standing in the wings as he came offstage to a rousing standing ovation. A local host said, “Mr. President, they want an encore!” To which the president replied with a laugh, “Oh, no, first rule of showbiz. Always leave ’em wanting a little more.”
It’s easily understandable why so few people in the most visible professions can bring themselves to follow that rule. Public acclaim may be the ultimate intoxicant, so the greater the prominence, the greater the fear of irrelevance when the klieg lights are turned off. As Napoleon is said to have said, “Glory is fleeting, but obscurity lasts forever.” And it’s all too human to imagine that one’s value equates to irreplaceability.
A while back I spoke at a men’s club in an expensive and exclusive retirement community. My host greeted me by saying, “Welcome to the Land of the PIPs,” dispelling my puzzlement by the clarification “Previously Important Persons.” He said it with a smile, but the melancholy was unmistakable.
I was tempted to refer him to the wisdom of the gangster movie I had recently seen, in which one mobster says of the Big Boss who had left the life for the beach, “Quittin’ on top ain’t the same as quittin’.”
If only more of our high achievers could bring themselves to take that advice.
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