When Mariano Rivera tore his ACL last season shagging fly balls, there was a moment when we all assumed his hallowed career had come to an unceremonious end; no playoffs, no glitz, no glory. Just a guy holding his knee in the outfield and mercifully fading into the background. Rivera came back, however, and was not quite ready to hang it up. Not that he isn’t close.

At her peak in 2011, Canadian tennis player Rebecca Marino was ranked No. 38 in the world and made it to the third round of the French Open. But earlier today, she released a statement announcing her retirement from the game.

Four days before the Baltimore Ravens opening round playoff game against the Indianapolis Colts, Ray Lewis announced that he was retiring after the season. The news cued an onslaught of praise upon praise upon praise, with Lewis lapping up the rewards of 17 years of tackles and dancing and preaching. And now that he’s in the Super Bowl, retiring off into the sunset, it’s all gone to plan.

Ray Lewis, man of the motivational word, is retiring at the conclusion of this season. Though he returned to practice on December 5th in anticipation of his return from a torn triceps injury suffered earlier in the season, it is unclear as to whether or not he will play against the Indianapolis Colts this Sunday in the AFC Wild Card round.

Hideki Matsui is retiring…to his Godzilla-sized porno collection of over 55,000 films. Don’t act like you’re not impressed.

Ed Anzalone, also known as Jets No. 1 cheerleader Fireman Ed, is hanging up the pom poms. In a statement released yesterday, Anzalone cited the loss of “respect” among Jets fans as reason for his quitting retirement. Though he will still attend games, he will no longer lead the “J-E-T-S JETS JETS JETS!” chant nor sit in the same section. Also, he’s not a quitter who did not quit Twitter.

Longtime UConn Huskies men’s basketball coach Jim Calhoun is calling it a coaching career after 875 wins, three national titles, and an amount of health issues somewhere in the vast between. According to Andy Katz, the decision comes as a result of a few different factors, my favorite one being his inability to stand for 40 whole minutes and coach in his usual vociferous style. Because if you can’t coach vociferously, you shouldn’t coach by any other adverb. Read more after the jump.

It’s no mystery so many of their peers are, and were, happy to see Chipper Jones and Bobby Cox retire. You know, because they terrorized their teams for so long. So it begs the question: which Brave made life more of a living hell for opposing clubs? Let’s examine – by way of the retirement gifts each received from opponents – after the jump.

Once upon a time, Andy Roddick was the golden boy of American tennis. He was going to carry the torch Sampras and Agassi left behind, the one they themselves got from Connors and McEnroe. And it looked promising at first when Roddick won the 2003 U.S. Open. But along came Federer. And Nadal. And Djokovic. And Murray. And basically the rest of the world, who lapped Roddick and ensured his Open victory would be his first and last major championship. Today, Andy turned the big Three-O, and announced his departure from tennis.

NFL running backs usually make inglorious exits from the game. Even guys who were once at the top of the sport usually hit a steep decline around 30, jump around from team to team, get cut a few times, play in the arena league, and eventually fade into pigskin oblivion. Clinton Portis would be damned if he let that happen to him.