More than 11,000 athletes from across the country have flocked to the Steel City this week to compete in the National Senior Games. All participants, from pickleball to shuffleboard to basketball, are ages 50 and older.
Officials with SportsPITTSBURGH, which is hosting this year’s games, say the competition celebrates staying active and aging well. The athletes present embody that: four are over the age of 100.
“It's a little bit disappointing as you're aging [and you] can't move as quickly, because that's what I am accustomed to,” said basketball player Sheila Bingham, who traveled with her team from Jackson, Tennessee.
“We actually have a player that's 82,” Bingham added. “She is my motivator. When I see her, I can't quit. I’m encouraged to do more and keep playing.”
Bingham began playing basketball as a point guard on her high school’s team. But many older female athletes warming up inside the David L. Lawrence Convention Center on Monday lived through a time when school teams for women weren't guaranteed.
Jean Trimboli of Norwalk, Connecticut, was in high school when, in 1972, President Richard Nixon signed the Education Amendments Act into law. Title IX of the measure barred discrimination on the basis of gender in all educational activities, including sports.
Trimboli was the first woman to receive a basketball scholarship to Sacred Heart University and served as the women’s basketball team’s first captain.
“We had six girls on the team, that was it,” she said. “I just played the four years and then after that — where I lived and where I was from — there was nothing else. That was it, you were done.”
Trimboli remained involved in the sport, coaching and running leagues for her five children. Throughout that time, however, she longed to play again but could not find a women’s league to join.
It was in 2012 that she found the team she’d go on to compete with in Pittsburgh — the Connecticut Classics. By then, her kids were older.
“Now I’m playing Sunday mornings, I play Wednesday nights, I play nationals,” Trimboli said. “Now I can't get enough.”
Finding community amid the competition
For those who have competed in the National Senior Games before, the tournament marks a biennial chance to engage with friends from across the country.
“I think the people you meet are genuinely good people,” said Frank Sakata, a 75-year-old pickleball player from Plymouth, Massachusetts. “A lot of nice people are playing pickleball. So wherever you go, no matter if it's in Pittsburgh or in Boston, it's all good.”
Debbie Lente-Jojola of the Isleta Pueblo outside Albuquerque, New Mexico, said each year she looks forward to meeting other athletes from Native American communities across the continent.
“We have other pueblos here from Jemez, Sandia, some ladies from Jicarilla Apache,” Lente-Jojola said, who plays shuffleboard. “Some other teams from Albuquerque and surrounding, but because we're native [we] tend to hang out with the natives.”
At last year’s competition in Fort Lauderdale (postponed from 2021 to 2022), Lente-Jojola and her partner took home gold medals in the 65-69 age group. She hoped to do the same this year in Pittsburgh.
“It's really very exciting to see elders [and] seniors continue to play,” Lente-Jojola said. “I really promote that and want other elders to continue to play.”
At nearly 80 years old, Saundra Woods of Washington, D.C., said she is grateful her body has continued to allow her to play the sports she loves. Woods had won three of the four pickleball matches she played Monday morning.
“Hopefully this will inspire other people to continue to work out, to participate in whatever it is they like, but to keep moving,” said Woods, who taught physical education in public schools for 51 years. “The body is made to move.”
To Barry Beal of Redding, California, competing with his basketball team, the Half Fast Old Men, is a privilege.
“As one of my co-players tells me all the time, we're one injury away from retirement, so we just keep going,” he said.
The National Senior Games will continue through July 18th.
