Cover Story of Today's USA Today

'Generation's Sports Icons Are Feeling Their Age'
Erik Brady

Larry Csonka tells a story about a reunion of his 1972 Miami Dolphins some years back. They spent hours trading stories about their aches and pains and hobbled knees. Then they boarded a bus bound for a night game to be trotted out for halftime huzzahs.

Csonka enjoyed the illusion of time travel as he rode in that darkened carriage. 'The same guys who had always jawed at each other were jawing at each other,' he says. The voices hadn't changed. And for an instant it was like we stepped back to 1972 all over again.

'Then the bus pulled up, and the lights came on. And lo and behold'--here he pauses to laugh--'all those athletic young men had turned into old farts again.'

Baby Boomers always fancied themselves as special and different in the flower of their youth. But as Boomers leave middle age for senior citizenry, they're finding that, in one regard, they are the same as all preceding generations--growing old one day at a time.

Csonka's undefeated Dolphins have gone from Super Bowl to superannuated in what seems the blink of a bus light.

Sober truth from an honest article.

In Christ, time will one day lose its vicelike grip on us.