Grugger’s Way

Aging Athlete’s Feet  

As Boomer Generation athletes age, I have “observed” a natural “progression” in the various sports and athletic activities:

In Basketball we go from Dunking and Alley Oops to Dinks and just plain Oops.

Speaking of Dinks, in Volleyball we go from Kills to Dinks.

In Baseball, the “progression” is Hardball to Fast Pitch Softball to Slow Pitch…to Co-ed slooow pitch. When “going deep” and “bombs” mean something entirely else…time to retire our game.

If we are a Runner, we become a Jogger, then a Walker, then we use a walker. Crapola.

In Football we regress from full contact to flag football, then touch football, then just touch, period.

In Soccer, we become high school coaches, then U-14 coaches, then girls’ team coaches. (Okay, that isn’t meant as an insult to women.)

In Hunting, our sons start to insist that they have to come along. As I recall, that was how they started when they were twelve.

In Fishing, we become more worried about our fly than about the fish. (ahh, but we really enjoy getting out for the scenery.)

Instead of sea kayaking and “running the Class 4 rapids,” we “float” the river (so we can fish, you know).

Golf? That’s what’s left for us to do. Even here, we go from carrying our bag, to pulling a cart, to riding in a cart. We go from being driving demons to being demonic drivers that everyone on the course has to look out for.

So far as Golf goes, there is even a word used within the game to describe those of us who were ballplayers (of any sort): Duffers. Yes, a word that has even been adopted by the general population to refer to all of our remaining athletic abilities.

Since most of my relatives, particularly my three sons, consider themselves to be great athletes, or at least still better athletes than I ever was, I will probably have to e-mail this out. I have to let them know what they have to look forward to.

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