"Golden moments: Senior Games continue around South Sound" -- July 30, 2006

BY CALEB BREAKEY
THE OLYMPIAN

A checkers table sat just inside the Jubilee Lodge's glass doors. Jazzy music buzzed through the dining hall, catching the taps of several shoes. Waiters set baskets of rolls on a food table already topped with chicken, salad, coleslaw, beans and cookies.

"Out of the red, white and blue tables," a man spoke through a microphone, "the red tables go first."

More than 150 seniors rose from their tables and formed a food line longer than a tractor-trailer. But these seniors were different. They didn't flash diamond necklaces or slick ties. Instead, gold, silver and bronze medals hung around their necks.

The 2006 Washington State Senior Games continued Saturday, featuring track and field, 3-on-3 basketball, tennis, racquetball, pickleball, badminton, billiards, bowling, soccer, rowing, softball and dance.

The Lakewood Community Center hosted the pickleball tournament. Dozens of seniors and spectators filled the bleachers at the center. The squeaks of tennis shoes from players' constant jukes and body movements echoed sounds similar to a high school basketball game.

Mark Friedenberg stood alongside one of the courts, yelling out the scores in between serves. He wrote "The official pickleball handbook," a book which was published in 1999 and now has a second edition.

Friedenberg said pickleball may be the fastest growing sport among seniors

"A lot of seniors have told me that this game saved their life," he said. "Why? Because they had a sedentary life. They were playing checkers or shuffleboard."

Friedenberg wrote in his book that pickleball will be a part of the Senior Olympics one day.

Pickleball's main draw is its 44-feet by 20-feet court, a size much smaller than tennis courts, where younger legs have the advantage of covering more space

"Anybody can play this game -- you see all kinds of people out here, tall, thin, heavy -- it doesn't matter," Friedenberg said. "It really saves lives. A lot of seniors are active now. It's great."

Unlike track and field, biking and other sports, pickleball can be played cheaply. Regular paddles cost about $55, and wooden paddles about $12. The pickleballs cost as little as $1 each.

Another positive is its loose dress code.

"It's not like tennis, where you have to be prim and proper," Friedenberg said. "Everybody is wearing anything they want."

Roles were reversed at Tumwater High School throughout the track and field events.

Students tracked scores, served refreshments and paced the flow of events while seniors sprinted, threw and wheezed.

Grunts flailed across the field from the shot put event as three sprinters received medals inside Tumwater's red track. About 200 feet away, parallel to the shot put, were a rainbow of javelins speared in the ground.

Javelin throwers pranced forward to launch their poles from a strip of trimmed grass, halfway surrounded by lawn chairs and coolers.

One of the javelin hurlers, Gary Stenlund, competed in the 1968 Olympics.

Fresh out of high school, where he set a junior world record by throwing 240-feet 101/2 inches in 1959, he headed to college where he drank excessively -- so much that he doesn't remember the Olympics experience.

"It's kind of a blur for me because I was a raving alcoholic," he said.

But he stopped drinking in 1982 and now runs a coffee farm in Costa Rica, where he makes his home. That same year he started the javelin masters.

"I've made the full circle," he said. "Right now, if I tripped and hurt myself and I couldn't throw the javelin, it's OK."

Perry Dolan, Washington State Senior Games president, said he enjoys seeing people getting off their couch, getting active and "by golly, winning some medals."

"Most people that turn 50 don't want to admit that they're seniors. It's just an age. You get your AARP card. Nobody wants their damned AARP card. I got mad when I got mine," he said. "But I got a discount at my hotel."