In sports, athletes and coaches are all after one thing.

Not championships. Of course, they’re after that. They’re all after one more.

One more title. One more season. One more game. One more game-winning shot. It becomes an addiction, seeking one more. It is the antithesis of knowing when to walk away, bowing out gracefully. When the cup is empty, it is never refilled.

It was an addiction for Brett Favre, who heard the voice of one more far too often. Injury and age tend to quiet the voice and, for Favre, silenced it forever.

NBA legend Michael Jordan couldn’t resist the siren song of one more. He came back with the Washington Wizards in 2001, looking every bit the old man he was, out of his element playing a young man’s game. Same thing with Magic Johnson’s abortive comeback with the Los Angeles Lakers. Father Time is merciless to hero and villain alike.

But sometimes, one more has something to do with one’s life.

Joe Paterno, who died on Sunday at 85, was the classic follower of one more. He knew what awaited him on the other side of coaching, just as it did for Alabama legend Paul “Bear” Bryant, who succumbed just three weeks after retiring as coach. Penn State tried to push Paterno out the door in 2004, but the legendary coach refused to go.

Can you blame him? His life was wrapped into coaching and without the whistle, the early wakeup call, the film study and team meetings, he felt adrift.

When the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal broke, Paterno’s firing was a matter of if, rather than when. With his identity so intertwined with his career, it was little wonder that Paterno slipped away.

If politics is the art of the possible, sports is the art of the temporal.

Nothing lasts forever. A championship’s glow lasts a day or so and subsides quickly, like a meteorite screaming to Earth. Trophies gather dust and fade with age. Rings can be pawned in desperate times. Knees, ankles and backs can’t ignore the weight of too many carries, shots or yards.

Some are able to ignore the call of one more.

After back-to-back Super Bowl titles in 1997-98, Denver Broncos quarterback John Elway hung up his cleats. After two titles, he couldn’t have written a better closing paragraph to a Hall of Fame career.

The only way to defeat the voice of one more is to realize that life is far more than time spent on a sideline, swinging a bat, shooting baskets or blocking and tackling. One has to live in the moment and realize that moment moves on. As we all do eventually.

If not, the quest to stick around as long as possible consumes, dragging its victim down like the suction of a sinking ship sliding into the deep.

Sports might be a metaphor for life, but it isn’t life itself.