June Adventure

June brought along two big events in the life of Sharon Swensen. The first was the National Senior Games in Birmingham, AL, and the second was my 75th birthday.

On June 5th, I rode with an 79-year-old friend, Madline “Tiny” Cazel to Birmingham. I shared the driving and most of my 3+ hours were in soupy, rainy weather. I turned it back over to Tiny and we hit more heavy weather less than 20 miles from our hotel. After driving through a microburst, we witnessed at least half a dozen disabled cars, most in the median. None serious as we couldn’t travel fast. Needless to say, we were very happy to finally get to our hotel.

Tuesday was our practice day so pretty relaxing. Wednesday began Pool Play with games at 1 and 3. The first game was against the Mississippi Magnolias. You’d think they’d be gentle…NOT! The refs were really bad and were reported to the head ref after our game, which we lost by 1 point. We didn’t go to the free throw line once and I came out of that game with a badly jammed finger from a push and our captain was rammed in the chest, finding out after she got home that she has a fractured sternum.

We won the next three pool games, beating Chicago, Tennessee and Texas quite handily but, because of that one point loss, we were the second seed in our pool, meaning we had to play a third game at 4 PM on Thursday against Louisiana, which we won by 12 points.

On Friday, we had to play Mississippi again, and again, lost by 1 point. I had four fouls so was taken out with four minutes left in the game. Went back in with 1 minute. I think I should have been left in until I fouled out but that’s a problem with not having a coach. We won our next game meaning we’d be playing for bronze at our first game on Saturday, 8 AM.

We had lots of fun and many laughs in our off time. Here we are having lunch at a BBQ house.

We were now in the loser’s bracket (double elimination) and defeated Louisiana again to guarantee us a bronze medal. I sprained my ankle in that game so put on an ankle brace, which I originally bought for hiking, and finished the game. Our next game was…Mississippi!! Well, third time is a charm and we beat them by 6 points.  However, I fell and twisted my left ankle again. This time I saw stars and couldn’t get up without being helped to first aid where my ankle was heavily taped. I didn’t go back in that game. We now had silver and were quite happy. Rather than forfeit, we decided to avoid injuries in the last game and let everyone play. If we would have won, we would have had to play them again and, as this was our 10th game, we had very little left to give. Our goal was to get 15 points and hold them under 50. Final score 50-24. They were a good team, very good shooters and not rough, just good basketball. Our offense all week was awful. No-one  was shooting good but our defense got us to second place out of 16 teams. I averaged less than 8 points per game but had lots of blocks, interceptions and good defense. All this week I’ve been dealing with a bum ankle and very painful finger. Was it worth it? It certainly was!!

BTW, my friend Tiny earned several medals in track. She broke the NSGA record and World record for 80 year olds in the Javelin. Unfortunately, they wouldn't recognize the world record because she doesn't turn 80 until November. That's a shame.

Pat Boone participating as an athlete and performed that night at Celebration of Athletes

Friend, 91 year old Ryan. He got many medals in swimming and track. That's a problem with basketball...we played 10 games but only got one medal. :-(

June 14 was my 75th birthday. Yes, 75 is the new 65, so life is good! My team captain, Julie, invited me to lunch and a movie. We saw Gifted, a good chick flick. That night, Arne took me to Texas Roadhouse where I had a delicious filet. Phone calls and texts from sons and grandkids rounded out the day. My real celebration will be next month when our whole family gathers in Temecula, CA.