With the Highland Games behind him, Durso looks for new competition

In the last few months, word has really spread about GeezerJock. We've gotten great ink in Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times and the Los Angeles Daily News. We were featured on PBS's "Boomer Century" program, on Erickson's Retirement Living Channel and on the Growing Bolder radio program. But they say you haven't made it in the media business until you make someone angry. Well, if that's the case, we've made it.

I recently ran into one of our readers, Kent Durso, at the University of Notre Dame's Reunion Weekend. Kent was celebrating his 40th class reunion; I was there for my 20th. Kent, like many of our readers, has sent us a couple of notes with ideas for stories. We get so many story suggestions that we can't respond to them all, and we hadn't responded to him. So he was a bit peeved when we ran into each other in the, uh, refreshment tent.

At this point I should mention that Kent is not someone whom you want to be angry with you. He is a strong man, a very, very strong man. In fact, Kent, who lives in Nashville, Tenn., is a pretty amazing story himself. He's a lifelong athlete and always has been fast and strong. He was the captain of the Notre Dame weightlifting team in 1966 and 1967. He played semi-pro baseball. He was a track & field athlete. He played rugby for a long time. "I was voted dirtiest player in the league two years in a row," he says with a chuckle. And later in life, Kent took up Scottish heavy events competition. He is a four-time Highland Games world Masters champion.

For Kent, there is a direct connection between vitality and quality of life. "I always felt that life was either magnified or diminished by the senses, and the physical ability to be aware," he said. "This is what led me to throw myself into weightlifting and baseball and track--I threw the shot for ND at 180 pounds, because our scholarship guys were ineligible--and rugby and the Highland Games."

Now, Kent is retiring from strength competitions. He has too many orthopedic issues to keep going in a sport that's hell on the joints, and he promised his wife, Karen, that he'd stop after the 2006 Highland Games, where he took the M60-64 title by a wide margin.

"My family has always supported me," he said. "I couldn't have had the success in these games that I have had without them." But this old athlete just can't give up competing, so he's going to join Karen and the rest of his family in their sport: canine agility competition.

I know what you're thinking. I had the same thought. Can a guy who has excelled in brute-force sports all his life find happiness escorting a pooch up ramps, over small fences and through curvy little tunnels? The handler needs speed and agility, too, he pointed out.

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned to Kent in an e-mail that I was at the Senior Games in Louisville. He quickly wrote back wondering where he would finish with a 13-second 100m dash. I told him he'd do pretty well. He shot me an e-mail back: "I am going out tonight in my cleats and run 100 meters and see what happens (apoplexy doesn't count). If I am anywhere near 13, I can feel a new career coming on!!"

That's more like it!