On a personal note, his retirement felt a little different than others. I'm probably the only person who was in the pressbox for his final game in high school, and his final game in the NFL.
In the late autumn of 2000, I had a side job as a freelance writer for a website called HighWired Sports. Fresh out of college, I spent my Friday nights and Saturday afternoons in the Dallas-Fort Worth area covering some of the best high school football matchups of the week.
One November Saturday at Texas Stadium, I covered a Denton Ryan-Corsicana playoff game, and Manning was clearly the best player on the field.