How Can a 50 Year Old Play Softball Again

You're never also onetime to play the game.

Lou Ann Thomas and Margaret McNiel are living proof.

Thomas, a 52-year-old from Oskaloosa, and McNiel, a 50-yr-one-time Lawrence resident, haven't let the aches and pains of middle age (and beyond) continue them from the joys of sport.

Thomas and McNiel were amidst 13 women – members of the 50-and-over Team Heartland – who represented Kansas in the women's softball competition at the Summer National Senior Games (also known equally the Senior Olympics) June 3-xviii in Pittsburgh.

The team's members, ranging in age from 50 to 65, joined almost 12,000 other senior athletes from the country to compete in 17 events, such as: bowling, badminton, archery, golfing, basketball, track and field, shuffleboard and volleyball.

Also from Kansas were a 55-and-over men's volleyball squad, a 65-and-over women's basketball team and a few athletes competing as individuals.

How'd Team Heartland do?

"We won i (game), we lost iv. Simply iii of our losses were to teams that finished first, second and quaternary in the championship tournament. So if you're going to go beat, get shell by the best," says Thomas, a freelance writer.

Members of the fifty-and-over Team Heartland gear upwards for a softball game from the bench. Seated are Lou Ann Thomas, 52, of Oskaloosa, and 50-year-old Margaret McNiel, of Lawrence, who were among thirteen women who represented Kansas at the Summer National Senior Games in Pittsburgh.

Squad Heartland did, yet, triumph over i of its opponents, the Pittsburgh Steel Magnolias.

For Thomas and McNiel, participating in the Senior Olympics for the first fourth dimension – the games are held every other year at sites effectually the country – marked a highlight on their journeying of return to competitive sports after several years of physical inactivity.

Anyone can duplicate their success at rediscovering athletics later in life, the women say, regardless of gender, historic period or status.

"Showtime where you lot're at," Thomas says. "If you haven't done anything, if you've only been sitting in a Barcalounger eating chocolate-covered cherries for a few years, you might want to just become for a walk. Just start moving."

Senior league sparked interest

A love of softball was what somewhen lured Thomas and McNiel back to playing sports.

Last summer, each of them joined softball teams in a Topeka city league, besides as an contained league in due north Topeka for women 45 and over.

McNiel, a estimator programmer for the state of Kansas, had grown up in Atchison playing softball in summer leagues. She later on ran track for Kansas Academy, graduating in 1981 with a available'south degree in physical education.

"I was playing softball until I was about 45, so I quit considering so many of the players on my teams were the age of my children. A lot of it's social, and information technology's not all that much fun to play with people who are a lot younger," she says.

Lou Ann Thomas, 52, of Oskaloosa, bats during a softball game at the Summer National Senior Games in Pittsburgh. Thomas and Lawrence resident Margaret McNiel, l, were among xiii women who represented Kansas as Team Heartland at the games.

"But when they started this (45-and-over) league in Topeka, information technology was really fun because it was a lot of people similar me who like to play ball, but maybe don't have the speed any more than."

That sparked her interest in joining Squad Heartland and participating in the Kansas Senior Olympics, held each year in Topeka.

McNiel has since competed at the state level in softball, bowling, badminton, volleyball and golf game.

Thomas, like McNiel, had played softball when she was younger, before dropping away from information technology. She played the game almost continuously from childhood onward.

Thomas played softball and volleyball for two years at KU. She graduated in 1974 with a bachelor's degree in journalism and returned to earn a bachelor's in education in 1977.

But when she was 35, a dorsum injury ended her playing days, and Thomas had to overcome a lot to go dorsum into the game.

Still competing

While recovering from the injury, Thomas began to gain weight, peaking at 380 pounds. And so, in the summer of 1998, she was diagnosed with uterine cancer.

Thomas had a consummate hysterectomy in Jan of 1999. She has been cancer free since then.

"Yous always kind of bargain with whomever yous think may be in charge of your life. I said, 'If I live, I desire to live healthy. I want my life back. And I'll practise anything to do that,'" she says.

"And so I lived (through the cancer), and I had to fulfill my stop of the bargain."

Information technology took Thomas two years, through diet and practice, to lose almost 190 pounds.

"That's pretty astonishing. I never, in my wildest dreams, idea I'd be playing softball once more, or anything active," she says.

"When I joined the softball league (in Topeka) last summer, that'southward when I started playing softball again. I met great people, I met Margaret, and she'due south like my childhood playmate at present."

Both women say they intend to keep playing senior softball as long equally they can.

"It'south actually fun to play again with women in your own age bracket," Thomas says. "Nosotros may not be as fast, we can't hitting it as far, but we can yet compete."

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Source: https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2005/jun/23/softball/

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