Age is just a number, but which number is it?
For all the advancements in the study of aging, geriatrics, gerontology, and whatever additional academic labels define the current scholarship, the sports world still leans hard toward guesswork in identifying the point at which athletes can no longer perform to their own standards.
This is likely because the bulk of the scientific research magnetizes to the health problems of aging rather than the salary cap problems of people managing a roster of 20- and 30somethings, logically enough.
When Steelers personnel guru Kevin Colbert sits up at night considering the immediate future of quarterback Ben Roethlisberger, for example, his ready references probably don’t include the National Institute on Aging’s investigation on Putative Aging Intervention Agents in a Genetically Heterogenous Mouse Model.
Like just about everyone else in sports, he’s more likely toand perhaps even better served by simply watching athletes similar in age to Ben, oreven older, so as to frame the pressing questions regarding No. 7.
Ben will be 39 a week from Tuesday, meaning that when the next NFL season starts, he’ll be closer to 40, so it was perhaps notable this week that Serena Williams, age 39, left an Australian Open news conference in tears after a coupleof dozen unforced errors gother dismissed in two sets by23-year-old Naomi Osaka. A flash fire of speculation that Serena had just walked off the Melbourne court for the final time blazed through the news cycle, but a quick dissemination of the fact that she’s one GrandSlam singles victory short of Margaret Court’s 24 appearsto have gotten it undercontrol.
Ten days earlier, quarter back Tom Brady, age 43, won his unprecedented seventh SuperBowl by outplaying 25y-ear-old Patrick Mahomes. Thusthe Buccaneers QB left hiss port’s championship not in tears but toward an apparently generous flow of avocado tequila.
Brady took special delight in orchestrating a Twitter video excoriating his critics, thepeople who had helped prolifer ate the not-exactly-hilarious notion that 43-year-old quarter backs are not likely to wina Super Bowl.
“Have you seen much of old Number12 lately — I mean really old Number 12?” went one such analysis. “Not only did 2019bring the first evidence that Brady could not execute every throw anymore, it brought irrefutable video evidence that he didn’t always make easy throws to open receivers.He completed 61% of his passes. Mason Rudolph completed62%.”
Yeah, that was me, one yearago almost to the day.
WhatI didn’t know, among many, many things, was that Brady’ s biological age is closerto 33 even as his chronological age is 43. My excuse is that I had not talked with Bill Presutti of South Fayette, who has spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship between the two, even to the pointof having taught a fitness course for older adults through Carnegie Mellon’s Osher Life long Learning Institute after three decades on the business faculty at Duquesne.
Inan email a few weeks ago explaining why he would be rooting for Brady to win in SuperBowl LV, Bill estimated Tom’s biological age at 33, and further advised that “If you are interested in calculating your biological age, you can goto biological-age.com to get anidea of how old you are biologically.”
For me, that’s a big “no thanks. ”When you’re 67, lookin’77, actin’ 87, less is more on the geriatric progression front. But it might be helpful if Ben answered the 25 questions at that site and shared the results with Colbert. Failing that, I just flat out asked Bill the other day what he’d guess Roethlisberger’s biological age to be.
“Just looking at him,” Bill chuckled, “my guess is that his biological age is probably close to his chronological age.”
No help, Bill. The question appeared to getmore urgent this week as the position of the parties calcified into essentially this:
Benand his agent: Money won’t be an issue.
Art Rooney II and Kevin Colbert: Oh yes it will.
If the Steelers thought Brady’ s performance in the SuperBowl — he was 21 for 29 for201 yards and three touchdowns, with no picks and a passer rating of 125.8 — means that Ben has one or two or threeor four more good years in him, that’s one thing. If it means only that there’s no one like Brady, that’s likely quite another.
“I hated him when he was with the Patriots,” Bill said. “Mywife even said, ‘You’re going to root for Tom Brady?’ I said, ‘You know, I am going to root for him. He’s 43 years old, andif you look at him, the way he moves around on the field, my God, a 43-year-old guy playing against 24 year olds.’ Hed oesn’t look any different frankly.As committed as he is to winning, he’s as committed to keeping himself in a condition where he can compete at 43.It’s to the point where he’s eating cauliflower ice cream, or stuff like that. He’s an anomaly. I don’t think we’ll eversee anything like that again.”
Probably not, but it might atleast be a conversation starter at Steelers headquarters:
“So Ben, do you happen to like cauliflower ice cream, or stuff like that?”