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I n an event drenched with symbolism, my friend and I recently put together an adjustable basketball hoop in my driveway. Afterward, we were too exhausted to do anything but watch the kids shoot baskets.

At age 35, I am announcing my retirement from competitive sports. This is not about money, nor is it about pride (my athletic ability has produced neither). It's about finally exorcising the basic male need to be seen as a jock.

It's also about pain. I personally am opposed to pain, especially the kind caused by doing something that used to require no effort—like jogging the length of a gymnasium.

The applause you heard during the preceding announcement came from my wife. She's been worrying that I'd somehow be killed playing church-league basketball. Her fears might have been based on me coming home after games looking like I'd been dragged behind a tractor for two hours. This was the result of a training regimen that involved showing up for a game having experienced nothing remotely resembling exercise in the past week. So by the second quarter, I'd have been happy to be dragged around by a tractor because at least I wouldn't have had to move under my own power.

I suppose, sooner or later, all would-be athletes come to the realization that we're embarrassing ourselves in front of strangers and we really just need to go home and take up needlepoint. Still it's as difficult for the male ego to accept as it is for our wives to understand. I'm the same age as Michael Jordan, who even in retirement can whip anyone on the planet in one-on-one.

The great ones accept aging gracefully, bowing out before they are embarrassed by younger, faster, stronger players. (Of course, already having earned a bazillion dollars makes this decision a lot easier.) The clods, on the other hand, wait for a subtle sign that maybe it's time to pack it in. In my case, the sign was that my bones started breaking when I played basketball. During a low-speed game at a church picnic, I pivoted wrong, tumbled to the concrete and snapped my ankle—all without being so much as breathed on by another player.

"Maybe someone is telling you that you should give this up," my wife said in that I-told-you-so tone on the way to the doctor's office. With my ankle the size of a softball, I knew she was right. But I wasn't happy about admitting the ultimate defeat: failing to achieve sports greatness at any level.

Despite my 6' 5" height and reasonable amount of coordination, I never was what you'd call a star athlete. In fact, I warmed the bench for an incredibly mediocre high school basketball team. I suspect I made the team because I could dunk, which fired up the other players during warm-ups. One problem was that I weighed 170 pounds and could be pushed around by opposing cheerleaders.

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