Tom Brady, after just a month-and-a-half, is back.
In a social media post, Brady announced that he would be returning to the Buccaneers for his 23rd NFL season, becoming the latest high-profile athlete to come out of retirement.
Athletes coming out of retirement isn’t uncommon, though – typically – they remain on the sidelines longer than Brady did. And, like Brady, some of sports’ biggest names and personalities realized they missed the game too much to stay retired. Some icons actually came out of retirement twice before walking away a third and final time.
In honor of Brady returning to the Bucs, here are some of the most notable athletes to come out of retirement.
Michael Jordan
From one GOAT to another, Jordan abruptly retired at the age of 30 in October of 1993, saying that he no longer had the desire to play just months after his father was murdered. “I have achieved a lot in my short career. I just feel I don’t have anything else to prove, ”Jordan said. Jordan then signed a minor league deal with the Chicago White Sox’s Birmingham Barons and played one season in 1994.
And while Brady did it in a tweet, Jordan did it a fax, infamously releasing a statement in March 1995, saying: “I’m back.”
It wouldn’t be the last time Jordan came out of retirement. After sitting out three seasons after he retired from the Bulls from 1998-99 through 2000-01, Jordan returned and played 142 games more over two-and-a-half seasons with the Washington Wizards.
George Foreman
“Big George” had a monster career as a heavyweight that spanned 30 years. In one of the most stunning reversals, Foreman became an ordained minister after a life-changing loss to Jimmy Young in 1977. Foreman spent more than a decade away from the ring before he came back in 1987 at the age of 38 and went on to pull off a string of victories. Eventually, he became the oldest person, at the age of 45, to win the WBA and IBF titles and become world champion, when he knocked out Michael Moorer in 1994.
Foreman had previously had another short hiatus, from 1974-76. Eventually, Foreman did walk away for good, in 1997, with a 76-5 career record.
Roger Clemens
Though his legacy is complicated because of links to performance-enhancing substances that could prevent him from getting into the Hall of Fame, Clemens came back twice after soft retirements. The first came in 2003, after he pitched for the Yankees and walked off to a standing ovation in his final game. But he changed his mind and returned at the age of 41 for the Houston Astros, his hometown team, and won his seventh Cy Young, going 18-4 with a 2.98 ERA and 218 strikeouts. Clemens then said he was “99 percent” retired after 2004, but he came back for Houston’s 2005 run to the World Series, when he produced a 1.87 ERA, leading the National League.
He said he once again considered himself retired, but returned to the Astros for the 2006 season. Never one to shy away from the dramatic, Clemens, during the seventh-inning stretch of a May 2007 game against the Mariners, announced to the entire stadium that he would be coming back to play for the Yankees once again.
It was his last season.
Michael Phelps
When Phelps retired after the 2012 London Olympics, he was already the most decorated Olympian of all time, with 18 gold medals and 22 overall at the age of 27. Phelps admitted that retirement was boring and returned to training seriously just one year later before competing seriously in April 2014. It all set up his return to the 2016 Olympics in Brazil, where he added five more golds and six more overall medals to give him a career total of 23 and 28, respectively. Phelps was adamant that the 2016 Games would be his last di lui and vowed to stay retired. He kept his word about him.
Dara Torres
She had already come back twice before, so when Torres tweeted in 2015 that she was coming out of retirement, many didn’t realize it was only an April Fools’ joke.
Fans who fell for it can be forgiven; Torres first came out of retirement to participate in the 2000 Sydney Olympics at 33 years old. Eight years later, she did it again ahead of the 2008 Beijing Games, at the age of 41. She competed in five Olympics and won 12 medals.
Brett Favre
He had an on-again, off-again relationship with retirement in his first go in the NFL, constantly bringing up the idea that he was considering stepping away late in his 16-year stint with the Packers. Favre finally retired after the 2007 season, just as some quarterback named Aaron Rodgers was handed the reins to the franchise. Favre then changed his mind and returned for one season with the Jets in 2008, a year in which he led the NFL with 22 interceptions. Favre then informed the Jets that he would be retiring … until a few months later when he entertained the idea of coming back to play for the Vikings, one of Green Bay’s fiercest rivals.
Favre played two seasons in Minnesota, taking the Vikings to the NFC Championship Game in his first season there, in 2009.
Kim Clijsters
Like Jordan, Favre and Clemens, Clijsters came out of retirement twice. Two years after winning her di lei first major di lei, the 2005 US Open, Clijsters retired to start a family. But after having di lei daughter Jada in February 2008, she was back on the tour 18 months later. Three tournaments into her comeback di lei, she won the 2009 US Open, beating Williams, Venus Williams and Caroline Wozniacki in the process. Clijsters would win two more majors and reclaim the No. 1 ranking before retiring again in 2012.
Then, as if that wasn’t enough, after seven years away from the game, Clijsters came back in 2019 at the age of 36. Clijsters competed as recently as October 2021 in the BNP Paribas Open in Indian Wells, at the age of 38 .
Jeff Gordon
It was a brief return to the track, but Gordon stepped up for Hendrick Motorsports in 2016 to fill in for Dale Earnhardt Jr., who was suffering from concussion-like symptoms at the time, just eight months after an emotional farewell tour when he officially retired. Gordon posted two top-10 finishes in eight races in 2016.
Now the vice chairman of Hendrick Motorsports, Gordon also did some broadcast work as an analyst for FOX Sports.
Mario Lemieux
The long-time Pittsburgh Penguins star played for only one team, but he retired after the 1996-97 season due to lingering back issues and a 1993 cancer scare when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s disease. He was anointed to the Hockey Hall of Fame in 1997 after the organization waived the three-year waiting period. Lemieux actually was part of a group that bought the Penguins in 1999 that helped get the franchise out of bankruptcy.
So when he returned to the ice after 44 months midway through the 2000-01 season, he became the first sports star to buy a stake in the franchise for which they played. Lemieux would go on to play five seasons after his initial retirement of him, before calling it quits for good, at the age of 40, after the 2005-06 season.
Rob Gronkowski
Of course, with Brady back, we can’t overlook the return of one of his most trusted targets, tight end Rob Gronkowski, who announced his retirement in March 2019 after a nine-year stint with the Patriots. Gronkowski sat out one season, and even dabbled in professional wrestling, before he came out of retirement and made his way back to a partnership with Brady with an April 2020 trade. Gronkowski went on to win Super Bowl 55 with Tampa and also played last season. Gronkowski, 32, has yet to announce his plans for the 2022 season and beyond.
Contributing: Nancy Armor, Bob Nightengale, Associated Press
