What, Luck
August 29, 2019
Hunter Smith
Super Bowl Champion, Speaker & Performing Artist
What, Luck? - Hunter Smith
Super Bowl Champion, Speaker & Performing Artist
Lately, everyone I talk to is asking what I think about Andrew Luck’s retirement.
As a 12 year NFL veteran, I have perspective on this. I do not, however, have the perspective most Colts and football fans want me to have.
I have lived and worked in Indianapolis for the last twenty years of my life. Following the draft in April of 1999, I graduated from Notre Dame and moved to Indianapolis. My plan was to attend practice one day, wear the uniform, take a picture of myself, get cut, then head home to Texas. This plan turned into a 10 year run with Peyton Manning and the winningest franchise ever to play pro football over the period of a decade—including a World Championship in Super Bowl XLI. I finished my career with a two-year stint in Washington.
In ten years as the punter for a Peyton Manning led offense I had plenty of time to observe teammates, ponder life, and develop other talents. In the years since my retirement in 2011, I have written a book, been the lead singer for a country-rock band, and started a flourishing local farm business. Football was never an endgame for me. Throughout my career, I always saw it as a temporary gig that was ending soon somewhere around the next corner. Finally, after two injury-riddled seasons in DC I chose to stop turning corners and retire. My phone rang immediately after that season with other teams offering positions. I didn’t answer. It was time to walk away.
Because of this perspective, I have a unique compassion for Andrew and his recent decision. No, I never shared the same limelight he has experienced, and I certainly haven’t experienced his financial reality. But, I do know what it is like to be a man with other ideas on life outside of football.
Andrew Luck is a thoughtful, smart, introspective person. He has talents and interests well outside the walls of athletics. Interestingly, he is the son of an ex-NFL player. This interests me because one might think, as a player’s son, he would be more sports-centric with the more inherent or imparted drive. That he would see only one way forward—football. This is a flawed understanding. My experience is that the most single-faceted, driven-at-all-costs athletes are not the children of other accomplished athletes. No, they are the children of people who believe a lie about athletics. The lie is that significance is wrapped up in athletic achievement. By and large, the most difficult sports parents are those who, because of inability, injury, genetics, or lack of opportunity did not see their athletic dreams realized.
Andrew is the most physically gifted quarterback to ever play the game. It’s true. He is also one of the strongest mentally gifted guys to suit up. I would say the most mentally gifted, but I played with Peyton Manning. No one is Peyton Manning. So, here is (potentially) the greatest prospect in history walking away in the prime years of his career. How? Because this man sees the whole picture. He values his wife, his future children, and his involvement in their lives. He also knows something we don’t—that he has other gifts, interests, and career dreams for his life. This is a product of his nature, but also a product of the nurturing he received growing up in the home of another NFL player. His parents didn’t make athletic achievements the measure of his life and character. Experience taught them there was much more to life. As such, while the rest of the world boos over their Bud Lite, Andrew moves forward somberly, but at peace.
I want to be the kind of parent who allows my children to explore and pursue their true potential and aspirations, not mine. Such children are better for the world. May the seeds of my children’s dreams take root and grow tall in soil built by the dying of my own.
My next thought involves you. Are you at peace with how you are spending your one and only life? I’m sure the answer is a mixed bag. The farm I own produces food and experiences. It is not a therapy center. However, over the past couple years many visitors have shared, unsolicited, how they’d like their life to look differently. These are accomplished people earning strong salaries. They take lavish vacations. Their children want for nothing. However, for many of them, their ideal looks very different than their reality. For some, it looks like a simple house on land with some animals or a garden. Others have businesses they dream of starting. Some want to adopt children. Still, others want to give more time to philanthropy or start a non-profit.
Usually, somewhere near the end of these conversations, I’ll hear them refer to their anchor. I don’t mean they actually use the word “anchor.” Rather, I hear them refer to a job, retirement, or financial situation. Or, they talk about all of the things they’ve been told they need to afford in life; a big house, travel sports, Disney—the anchors. The healthiest lives are those built on strong foundations, not those held down by the heaviest anchors. I’m not presuming to know the complexities of their life, but I do know what I’ve been told. I’m not presuming to know any of the solutions to their discontentment, but I do know this—some of them need to know they are free. Free from the requirement to live in that house in that neighborhood. Free from the need to send their kids to that school. Free from the tyrannical powers of convenience, comfort, and security. Many a dream has died under the oppression of these forces. They are weights hanging from our feet while our arms grow tired of treading water.
This week Andrew Luck chose to call football an anchor. He cut the strings and took a deep breath. He stepped out from the tyranny and into a future of possibility.
I have won a Super Bowl, lived a backstage life, earned enough wealth for several lifetimes, yet I have never sensed the reality of fulfillment I do now. Whatever fame I once held is gone. The ridiculous weekly paychecks have stopped. I have added a first name and punctuation to my title. My name used to be Hunter Smith. Now, it is “Remember” Hunter Smith? People like Andrew and me are all propped up by the industry just long enough for it to get the best of our youth. Then, once our skill and expertise have been exhausted, our disposability is exposed. But, don’t feel sorry for me. In my disposed state, I have found the indispensable.
As of this week, so has Andrew Luck.
How about you? Your one and only life is growing shorter with every passing pulse of your body.
Could this be your moment to rethink, reorder, reconsider?
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Smith is a 12 year NFL veteran, Super Bowl Champion, public speaker, Billboard top 20 Christian singer/songwriter, renowned storyteller, and author.