STILL HERE ADVANCES THE STUDY OF GERONTOLOGY BY ENTERING A SQUAD IN THE OHIO SENIOR OLYMPICS.

An Over-50 STILL HERE traveling team consisting of Paul Stallings, Damon Skinner, John Takacs, Rick Burgess and Mark Bruner will be doing sweaty combat in this year’s 3-on-3 basketball category of the Ohio Senior Olympics, to be held Saturday May 3 at Memorial Hall, University of Akron.

And no --- for all the inevitable smart-asses out there --- I did NOT mean to say: “Special Olympics.”

We were struck by the fact that the regulations for fielding a 3-on-3 team in the Senior Olympics program allows for a total roster of ten guys. After chuckling about the need to bring ten guys to fill three positions we then recalled that the ideal number of guys to fill five positions in our recent trip to the Masters Tournament in Buffalo would have been about 86. If our past record of injuries is any indication we may be down to two guys by the time we all get done taking our vigorous pre-game craps.

In looking down the list of sports recognized by the Ohio Senior Olympics program, the MARBLE SHOOTING category caught our eyes. I kid you not. Marble shooting is an Olympic sport for the elderly. We opted not to switch sports, however, for fear that Damon would inevitably pull two hamstrings and a groin muscle while trying to get up and off his knees to shoot an Aggie.

In other pre-tournament news, J.T. has exercised his veto power as our resident Right Winger to nix suggestions from more politically liberal quarters that STILL HERE use the Olympic event to stage some type of protest against China. Some of us still intend to have FREE TIBET written in magic marker on our jock straps.

Perhaps the most disconcerting part of the event, to-date, has been the indication by Paul that information on the Senior Olympics flows through the University of Akron’s department of AGING AND GERONTOLOGY which, presumably, is right next door to the University of Akron’s department of LIVER SPOTS AND RIGOR MORTIS.

Stay tuned, faithful readers. Damage reports will follow the Saturday games and sometime after the mandatory post-game consumption of healthy beverages.