Networking at its best
SLIPPERY ROCK — Knee replacements, torn ACLs, cancer, automobile accidents ... These senior citizen women have lived it.
They love the camaraderie and experience of being on the basketball court enough to overcome it.
“We’re like-minded people,” Saxonburg resident and former Knoch basketball coach Debbie Bauman said. “I’m 70-plus ... We like to keep active, and this is a fun way to do it.”
Bauman played for the Steel City Quest in the 65-over division of the ninth annual Rivalry at the Rock, a 3-on-3 senior women’s basketball tournament Saturday at Slippery Rock University’s Aebersold Recreation Center.
There were 19 teams competing, including six from the Senior Olympics of Western Pa. organization, based out of the Butler Cubs Hall. Teams also came in from Michigan, Maryland and Texas to compete.
Age divisions ranged from 50-over through 70-over, at five-year intervals. There were five 25-over age division teams competing. Butler resident Heather Starcher, 56, helped put those younger local teams together.
“I’ve helped recruit 100 women or so in to our group over the past 17 years,” Starcher said. “It’s important for women to learn you’re never too old to start playing. The idea in getting the 25-over group going is with the hope they’ll stay with it for a long time and become a feeder system for our older teams.
“I ran track and cross country in high school. I was on the basketball team, but I was 5-foot-2 and didn’t play much. I got married, had kids ... for 10 years or so, I got away from being active. That happens to a lot of women. When I was 40, I started playing basketball again at the YMCA and started meeting some of these women.
“The relationships you form are incredible,” Starcher added.
They serve as motivation for recovery from physical setbacks as well.
Mary Cooper, 67, of State College, plays for Steel City Quest and tore her ACL in 2013. She was back in the gym playing basketball seven months later. She also came back from skin cancer years ago.
“They made me wear a brace (after knee surgery),” Cooper said. “I fell and rolled over during a game and realized I had the brace on the wrong leg. I didnt get hurt, but that was the end of the brace.”
Butler resident Carol McCullough, founder of the Senior Olympics of Western Pa., is 80 years old. She had a knee replaced in 2018 and another last year. She did not participate in the Rivalry at the Rock, but will be in action at the National Senior Games, slated for Pittsburgh July 7-15.
Zelienople resident Joy Brewer, who competes in the 75-over division, had her knees replaced in 2021 and 2022. She also will be competing in the National Senior Games.
“I teach and play pickleball, too,” Brewer said. “I knew all along I’d be returning to this. There’s always physical therapy after replacement surgery, but therapy for someone getting ready to return to active competition is going to be different from therapy for a 75-year-old who’s going to be sitting on a couch.”
Pittsburgh resident Paula Franetti,. who also competes in the 65-over division, was the victim of a horrific automobile accident in September 2016. She suffered seven pelvic fractures, five spinal fractures, a ruptured diaphragm and internal bleeding.
“I was in a wheelchair for months,” Franetti said. “The doctors asked me if I could wiggle my toes when I was in ICU. They weren’t sure if I’d be able to walk. It’s the relationships and sensation of physical activity that made me want to get back.”
Franetti returned to the court in less than two years.
“The bursts of energy, quick reaction, the opportunity to compete in a sport ... It’s hard to express how I feel when I’m on the court. I missed it, I can tell you that. I missed it bad.”
Barbara Denison is a 1982 SRU graduate now living in Austin, Texas. She formed a Seniors basketball team there, but in the aftermath of COVID-19, she had trouble getting players.
Now her team — the 55-over Purple Reign — consists of herself, a woman from Albuquerque, N.M., Allentown, Greenville, etc.
“Women from all over the country who still want to play can find teams through the National Senior Games website,” Denison said. “We play in four tournaments a year: Texas, New Mexico, Washington (state) and this one. We qualified for this year’s nationals through the Washington tournament last year.
“Networking to play for Seniors teams goes on all over the country.”
McCollough, Brewer and Kathy Blair of the Butler area will be playing for Northern Virginia teams at Nationals “because they needed players and we needed teams to play for in our age group,” McCollough said.
The Rivalry at the Rock is put together by SRU professor Roberta Abney’s sports management class.
“We had 44 students working on it this year,” Abney said. “They planned it, organized it and implemented it. It’s important to these women and it’s important to the development of these students.
“Everybody wins.”
