Wiedmer: Golden agers go for gold

Come next week, 67-year-old Raymond Kile will compete in softball, basketball, the softball throw, javelin, shot put and discus at the Chattanooga District Senior Olympics.

“I’m supposed to run the 100 meters, too,” Kile said Tuesday evening. “But I tweaked my hamstring playing softball tonight, so I might be out of that one.”

Betty Case is 10 years older than Kile. She and her 75-year-old sister Barbara will team up on the badminton court for doubles, singles and mixed doubles. They’ve already qualified for the nationals later this year in San Francisco.

“I’m signed up for horseshoes and bowling, too,” said Case, who also used to play basketball and volleyball before quadruple bypass surgery two years ago forced her to cut back a bit.

“The first time I went to the nationals I just played volleyball,” said Case, who’s been competing in the Senior Games since 1992. “After I got home I told my family, ‘It’s silly to go that far for just one sport.’”

So now and she and her sister take turns dominating the state in badminton, each having won multiple singles titles.

“People laugh when I tell them what sport we play,” Case said. “But it’s great exercise.”

Seventy-year-old Patsy Duncan has been playing softball since she was 12 years old. Her husband Larry is one of only two Chattanoogans to have thrown a perfect game in men’s softball. Like Case, Duncan will be competing in the Senior nationals as a member of the Chattanooga Chargers softball team.

“I’ll actually be playing both softball and volleyball at the nationals,” Patsy said. “But I’ll be playing volleyball with a team from Knoxville.”

Clearly, these are not your grandfather’s shuffleboard partners. These are real athletes driven to win real medals.

“The camaraderie is really important,” said Duncan, whose Chargers team has been together for 14 years. “But we also can’t get over the competition. We want to win.”

Added Case, “A lot of it’s about staying fit, but I’m just real competitive.”

Perhaps this is why George Bernard Shaw once wrote: “We don’t stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.”

Or to take a slightly angle, as Kile noted, “I just want to show that older people can compete in sports. It also sets an example for young people to stay in shape and practice self-discipline.

“It’s also a whole lot of fun,” the retired postal worker added.

The Tennessee Senior Olympics began in 1981. Over the past 28 years its chief mission has remained to promote healthy lifestyles for senior adults through fitness, sports and an active involvement in life.

At a time when obesity rates have never been higher among younger adults and adolescents, this year’s Chattanooga district games will include 417 athletes ranging in age from 50 to 90. It is the largest number of athletes in the history of the local competition.

An opening ceremony scheduled for noon Monday at the First Tennessee Pavilion next to Finley Stadium will include a torch run through downtown Chattanooga. The actual events are slated for Tuesday through Saturday and include swimming, basketball free throws, bowling, volleyball, track and field, tennis, billiards, horseshoes, table tennis, softball throw, softball, ballroom dancing, a 5K run, cycling, golf, power walk, shuffleboard, badminton, three-on-three basketball, weightlifting and raquetball.

Judging from a few of the results from the 2008 local games, a lot of us might not want to leave our couches to compete against these folks.

Or do you think you could bowl a 279, as 89-year-old Felix Abel did?

Or run a 100-meter dash in under 17 seconds, as 82-year-old Charlie Baker did?

Or win gold medals in badminton, table tennis, tennis and swimming, as 90-year-old Martha Swasey did?

Ninety years old. Four gold medals. Talk about your greatest generation.

“People like Charlie Baker and Martha Swasey are an inspiration to us all,” Kile said. “I just hope I’m still able to compete at all when I’m that age.”

Kile, Case and Duncan were all good athletes in their youth. Kile played basketball at Central, as did Case, who was a senior the first year the school fielded a girls’ hoops squad. Duncan was a fixture on youth church softball teams.

Yet it wasn’t until UTC professor emeritus Richard Bergenback encouraged him to try the shot put, discus and javelin a few years ago that Kile picked up those sports. And though neither will be able to play it at these senior games, Case and Duncan have fallen in love with something called “pickle ball,” which kind of combines pingpong, tennis and badminton.

But for next week, their attention all will be focused on winning the sports they can play at the Senior Games.

Said Case with a hearty laugh: “Our goal is to outlive everybody else. Then we might get a gold.”