Hanging up the ol’ bungee cords as a daughter-mover

This column was originally published Aug. 2, 2005:

Long-time veteran Clay Thompson on Monday announced his retirement from daughter-moving.

“Daughter-moving is a young man’s game,” Thompson told a sparsely attended news conference on the porch of his Phoenix home. “It’s time for me to hang up my bungee cords.”

Thompson’s last outing came over the weekend when he helped a friend’s daughter move into a Tempe apartment.

“It was an easy job under good conditions. A ground-floor unit. I felt sharp, and things went well. I want to go out at the top of my game,” he said.

Thompson had a long and colorful daughter-moving career but probably will never be remembered as any more than a journeyman daughter-mover, not a Hall of Famer.

To his credit, he was well known in daughter-moving circles for his tenacious strong-back, weak-mind approach to the job and for his reliability.

That reliability came into question last month when illness forced him to miss a major daughter-move for the first time in a career that spanned more than eight years. He had to call in the mother to substitute at the last minute.

“I had a lot of time to think that day, and it made me realize I just don’t have my ‘A’ game anymore,” he said.

“There is a major daughter-move coming up in Indiana this month, and to tell the truth, I just don’t feel up to making the trip. Let the boyfriend help her.”

When asked if any of the dozens of daughter-moves over the years stood out in his mind, the wily veteran seemed to grow pensive.

“Oh, I guess you never forget the first daughter-move to college. Your first time in the Bigs,” he said. “The crowds, the emotion, the fancy hand trucks. That first one always stays with you.”

Like most hardened daughter-movers, Thompson has nothing but disdain for son-movers.

“Son-moving is for lightweights,” he said. “It takes a daddy to be a daughtermover.”