The West Virginia W50-54 basketball team

After getting roped into senior basketball, the author found it wasn’t so bad

My sister dragged me into this about eight years ago now. The whole thing was quite smooth, actually. I didn’t even see it coming.

When we were kids, my sister, Michele, was the neighborhood tomboy. She could throw a football farther than any of the boys and could outrun most of them. Being nine years younger, I was forced to listen to her complain that there weren’t sports teams for girls. She graduated in 1968, before Title IX.

By the time I got to high school, I could run track and play basketball and tennis for the varsity. Later, I played basketball for West Virginia University. I even played professional basketball for the Richmond Blue Angels, but the league folded — twice — before we played a game.

By the time I turned 40, back in 1998, I actually felt sorry for Michele. That was my first mistake. The second was reading a local newspaper article encouraging women over 50 to participate in non-contact, slightly competitive basketball for the state senior games. When I made the call to find out the particulars for Michele, that was my third mistake.

I forced my sister to the gym that first day. After all her bravado, she had the nerve to be shy! I sat there minding my own business, reading a newspaper as practice began. Somehow I left the gym as the coach of two of our three West Virginia teams. I didn’t see it coming. I didn’t ask for it and for sure didn’t want it! Michele refused to return without me. Surely, the rest of you younger sisters can empathize. It wasn’t a difficult decision once I considered the stories she’d tell about me if I refused.

Big Sis eventually quit the team after the National Senior Games in Baton Rouge, La., in 2001 with an injury. That year, we won no games and certainly no medals. Two years later, we were somewhat competitive in the National Senior Games, which were held in Virginia Beach, Va. We actually won our first game at the national level!

So at last summer’s games in Pittsburgh, the “Awesome Threesome,” as the women I coached in the 50-54 age bracket were known, was determined to bring home a medal — a lofty goal for sure. Let’s talk context, and um, reality here. These women had to be taught to bounce a ball without looking down. Plus, West Virginia introduced competitive high school basketball for girls in 1974. Other states evidently have had competitive wom-­ en’s basketball for considerably longer. Put them in sneakers and these women run and play like, well, men! They’re out for blood, trash-talkin’, 6-foot-tall, real ballers!

Our women never played competitively, but they had guts. There was Barb Martin, 55, the most determined and most aggressive of the squad. Reba Jacobs, 53, has raw talent and a pretty jump shot. Debbie Anderson-Conliffe, 51, a physical education instructor, was our “big man” at 5-foot-9. Mary Fitzgerald, 51, approaches the game like the government analyst she is: She’s slow of foot but steady. Linda Bragg, 52, the team’s comedian, sets strong picks. Ruth Ware, now 63, plays against women a decade younger.

I had done my best to educate, fine-tune, cajole and convince these women that they were the little train that could. That, dear friends, may have been my biggest mistake. To win a medal, it would take seven games, over three days, of eye-on-the-prize concentration, aggression, diligence and determination.

After our first six games in Pittsburgh, we were 5-and-1. That’s right, we won five games! “Awesome Threesome” was in the quarterfinals. Ultimately, though, all of my coaching antics could not and, in fact, did not, prepare them for that level of competition. Overwhelming, mind-numbing fatigue began to paint my players like the black and blue bruises that were on their arms and thighs.

In the end, these wonderful women hobbled into eighth place. They didn’t bring home the gold, silver or bronze, but they did win Senior Olympic ribbons.

I’ll coach these women one more time in Louisville, Ky., for the 2007 National Senior Games. I think that my sister might rejoin us. I regret Michele wasn’t there to experience the joy of competing. It’s a shame that she hasn’t often experienced the feeling of what it is like to truly wipe your brow as an athlete. But she will.

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