August 8, 2026
During this lull in the Philadelphia sports schedule – a few weeks before the Eagles season starts and the stretch run for the Phillies – it seems like a good time to address the question I get most often on those rare occasions when I poke my head out from my hermit’s fortress.
How’s retirement?
Really great, I usually reply. I should have done it sooner.
That’s the short answer, of course. Like most things in life, it’s much more complicated than that. The journey to post-career bliss required navigating around some precarious potholes.
Consider this an extra chapter in my book LOUD, in which I chronicled my battles with depression during a 33-year career at WIP. This time there’s no charge. (I’m still getting over the shock that so many people paid for the book. I guess all of those smartasses who claimed our listeners didn’t know how to read were wrong.)
It should surprise no one that my tug-of-war with emotional distress didn’t end with publication of the memoir in 2022. In fact, I was back in therapy even before the release at Thanksgiving that year.
I had an inkling retirement would be a difficult transition for someone like me, whose career was so intertwined with my personal life that I could hardly ever tell the difference between when one ended and the other began.
Within days of completing the first draft of LOUD, I suddenly found myself with no professional demands, and, some would argue, no real purpose left in life.
I was done, which is not to be confused with dead.
So how did I extract myself from life’s latest emotional vise? Of course, I harkened back to the radio show for help. I called our resident sports psychologist Dr. Joel Fish and scheduled weekly sessions to deal with life after retirement. I figured that Dr. Fish would be an expert on life after the crowds stop cheering – or in my case, the call-in lines stop ringing. He has spent his professional life helping to smooth the transition for athletes who are often still in their 30s when they call it quits.
What are people supposed to do when they retire?
Anything they want. How can that be a bad thing?
Well, it can be, until you learn how to reboot your brain to accommodate your dramatically different lifestyle.
During the year I spent with Dr. Fish, I learned some lessons I should have already figured out for myself before this new excursion into my muddled mind.
Lesson one: This too shall pass.
Lesson Two: Put away the scoreboard. You won.
That’s it – just two simple credos that prepared my brain for a new reality. Once I absorbed the wisdom of those two messages, retirement became exactly what it’s supposed to be. It became the reward for half a century of hard work.
Unfortunately, I was not at all prepared for the first lesson. I let almost nothing pass when I was in front of a microphone. I ranted for years until my voice literally would crack from overuse. I was talking sports in a passionate city, and I always felt I needed to match that passion every day.
And for many of those years, I didn’t stop overreacting when the On Air light went off. My wife Gail used to call the other me the radio guy. I’m just lucky she could see through the persona. I’m especially blessed that she saw a better me than I did. I’m still trying to get there. Some challenges transcend your career.
Now when I encounter a problem – I still have intricate detection devices in my warped brain for this sort of thing – I know enough to step back for a second and ask myself if the crisis is permanent. It never is.
Just last week, the youngest of my eight grandchildren, four-year-old Dutchie, swallowed a marble, which partially blocked his windpipe. For a couple of hours, while people far better than I am were handling the crisis, I was shaken in a way that I was not at all familiar with – powerless to help a child in distress.
I’m relieved to report that the marble popped back out during a cough in the emergency room, and my resilient little pal was back up and running in a matter of minutes.
This too shall pass.
The second lesson is one I have shared with anyone retiring, whether they want my advice or not. We work so hard for so long in pursuit of job satisfaction that we forget the things that will last much longer and bring greater joy than career success.
The initial step in the process is to get off the field for good. This major move sounds easier than it is. For months after I quit, I found myself mentally preparing an agenda for my next show, even though I didn’t have a show anymore. The memoir gave me a new challenge for a few months, but then I was adrift. Now what?
Fortunately, I had something new to occupy my still-overactive mind. Three awesome little grandkids were regular visitors to my house, and they pointed me in a new and more meaningful direction. Not only have they refocused me, but they have also given me a chance to see life through their wonder-filled eyes.
In retrospect, I have regrets that I was too immersed in my media career to see this obvious truth, but I am trying to make up for that lost opportunity with a newfound emphasis on everyone in my family.
One of the dumbest things I ever said on the radio – among many, many contenders – was that people who retire to spend more time with their families should check with their families first. Maybe they didn’t want any more time with you.
Well, yeah. But then it’s your responsibility to make them want more time with you. That’s the part I learned only after I had retired myself. In this regard, I am still a work in progress.
But the best part of my new philosophy is the freedom it brings. Most older people start caring less what other people think. This was never a big problem with me. I didn’t give a damn about public consensus through most of my life.
Still, now more than ever I am the judge, jury and (eventually) executioner of my own life. If I choose to do nothing all day, so what? There’s no scoreboard anymore. The only real gauge of a good day is whether I enjoyed it. I try every day to do that. There are no other goals.
Of course, I’m lucky to have a wife who has adapted to this restructured life plan and a family that is open to the new me.
I listen to radio almost never anymore, and not because I feel our show was superior to anything on today. I do not believe that. The truth is, the new shows on WIP are tailored to 2026. I was last heard on the air in 2022. Much has changed – including audiences – since then.
The reason I don’t listen is simply one of convenience. I am rarely in my car these days, and that has always been the preferred way for me to listen to sports talk.
OK, I can’t deny it is also hard to listen to something that swallowed up your life for over three decades and wonder how you would handle a big story today.
LeBron James is a Sixer? Terrific.
Kevin Patullo got the boot? Even better.
I created this blog to update our aging listeners with my sports opinions, just in case anyone still cared. The real truth is, I love to write and I love to talk sports (though not for money anymore), so this is a perfect outlet for me. Unlike my days in radio, when the ratings were our lifeblood, I have never once checked on how many people read this blog, or how many listen to The TV Show podcast I do with Rhea Hughes and Jay Black.
Anyway, I wouldn’t know what to do with those numbers if I had them. The scoreboard where I would post them is gone – as are all of the pressures of my professional life.
So what can I leave you with, whether you are retiring tomorrow or in 30 years? What has retirement taught me?
Enjoy every day. Carpe diem.
And despite the stupid words of a clueless talk-show host many years ago, the best reason to retire is to spend more time with your family.