You can love a sport and still be done with it. Leaving well is a skill too.

Being finished is not the same as being disillusioned. People assume you only leave something you love under bad terms, which makes a clean ending hard to explain and keeps plenty of players in for an extra season just to avoid the conversation. Affection and readiness to stop can sit side by side.

If you are leaving something, do it properly: tell the people who should hear it first, say it in person, finish what you committed to. Keep the reason simple and true. Done well, it stays a good memory instead of a sour one.