I guess it happens to all of us eventually.

The realization runs over you like Shawne Merriman on the way to a GNC. It levels you like SamAdams on the way to a buffet line. It stops you cold like a car pulling out in front of BenRoethlisberger.

You're getting old.

Either that, or everyone around you is getting younger.

You root for Brett Favre because he's 37 and graying faster than an air traffic controller.

You pull for Roger Clemens to keep pitching because you remember him when he was skinny and in Boston.

Not fat and in Houston.

You even hope George Foreman will make a comeback because a high schooler asks you, "The grill guy was a boxer?"

Yes, you pull for the old fogies because, well, you are on your way to becoming one.

It's a Michael Vick world these days. It's a LeBron James universe. It's a time when no one remembers when World Series games were played during the afternoon or when Super Bowls didn't feature a lame Cirque du Soleil pregame show.

Or an endless halftime show with "wardrobe malfunctions."

You come to a point when you long for the good old days when prime time football games were actually televised — on network TV.

You wish you could return to an age when you didn't look at every behemoth with a bat and suspect him of juicing up, or an age when a utility infielder who hits .199 didn't make more money in one year than you will in your entire lifetime.

And kids have changed, too.

Kids don't need rollerblades anymore. They just buy tennis shoes with wheels.

They careen through the mall like Eric Heiden hopped up on Mountain Dew.

In the future, there may just be a shoe-wheel event in the Olympics.

And why not? There's snowboarding in the Winter Games now.

Snowboarding used to be when you stole a lunch tray from your residence hall cafeteria in college, stood on it and slid down a hill.

You didn't get a gold medal for it. You got purple and green bruises for it.

There should be an Olympic sport for text messaging, too.

I witnessed a girl with the finger dexterity of Lt. Commander Data text message one of her friends across the gym with blinding speed.

Now that would be a cool sport — time how fast someone can text message "the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog."

I think that girl at the basketball game would be standing on the top of the podium when it was all said and done — and she'd probably be text messaging someone from up there, too.