2011 SENIOR OLYMPICS VIDEOS

2011 SENIOR OLYMPICS --- THE RESULTS ARE IN!

Gold Medal Winners! Shown above, the sweaty, banged-up but victorious team of Damon Skinner, Paul Stallings, Bart Skinner and Rick Noland. The guys swept the tournament including deliveries of repeated butt-beatings to their other Still Here brothers in the 50-55 age bracket. Rick proved that turning 50 is no impediment to great basketball as he gave All-Star performances in every game with a combination of long-range shooting plus some very aggressive driving and post play. An all-around MVP effort. Pops Stallings also came up big, especially in the championship game with some tremendous, strong, twisting moves to the bucket. The muscle combo of the dual-Skinners proved too much to handle down low even during those frequent times when Damon could be found reading the New York Times in the bathroom, eating citrus fruits in the lobby, or snoozing on the bench. Great games guys --- congratulations!

Silver Medal Winners --- Brian Needham, Dennis Powers, Rick Burgess, Rock Supan after a strong competitive day. Plenty of hustle and good ball-playing, followed by some admirable beer drinking and eating of deep-fried foods --- what good teams do best!

Bronze Medal Winners --- Steve Meadows, Paul Liesem, Mark Bruner, Jeff Schofield. Played hard, came up a bit short, but unanimously voted by the many young women in the stands as the BEST LOOKING TEAM OF DISTINGUISHED OLDER GENTLEMEN EVER TO PLAY THE GAME OF BASKETBALL.

POTPOURRI FROM THE 2011 SENIOR OLYMPICS

The sign above asks it all" "Need Assistance?"

Favorite part of the photo above where Rock is looking a bit like Eeyore standing alone in the field in the cold and the rain ---is the sign above his head. Think a message is being sent by the basketball gods?

Above: Paul employs a seldom used Old Man basketball tactic ---- distract the other guys by hacking up a fur-ball on the court.

Above: "Damn --- are those pigeons in the rafters?"

STILL HERE WINS SUMMER 3-ON-3 LEAGUE BUT NEWS TRAVELS VERY SLOW!

A STILL HERE squad consisting of (left-to-right on photo): Tyler Kaufman. Brett Garner, Mark Bruner, Bob Campbell, Paul Ray --- won the Medina Rec Summer 3-on-3 League --- last year (2010)! You'd think that with all the ass-paddlings we've received as a team the victories would be reported INSTANTLY! You'd be wrong. It's tough to find good sports journalists these days! But --- better late than never. The entire league consisted of two chapters. First: the regular season in which a whole long line of young teams trounced us game-after-game, week-after-week. They began to pity us. They looked upon us like lukewarm spit. Second: the playoffs, held on a single night. Apparently the moon was full, the Basketball Gods had just received their month's edition of the AARP magazine, and we were in some unearthly zone. After we dispatched the first young team we were all glancing at each other furtively. After the second team fell beneath our foul sneakers we began to wonder exactly what was happening and who we were. After the third and fourth wins we no longer cared. We held on to take it all --- a conclusion that truly baffled and pissed off a whole bunch of young guys who had long ago written use off as shabby examples of the Living Dead. In all honestly, we surprised ourselves just a wee bit --- but there you have it! Ty, Brett and Paul did most of the heavy lifting on the court all summer, while Bob and I did most of the heavy drinking afterwards. We all have our roles to play. Way to go guys. Coming soon --- the report of STILL HERE's victory over the Huns in 1918.

STILL HERE JV --- REPORT FROM THE ROAD BY BART SKINNER WITH COMMENTARY BY DAMON SKINNNER ---OLMSTEAD FALLS TOURNAMENT, 2011

The STILL HERE JV squad competed again in the Olmstead Falls 3-on-3 where they were Open Age winners two years ago. Although they went home a bit early this year we have to hand it to the young guys in that no older STILL HERE teams participated this year. So thanks, young guys, for carrying the team name into the tournament.

Although no senior squads signed up in 2011, the golden years bracket was not without its representation in that Bart Skinner --- who has his own chapter in the book on carbon dating --- played with the JV team (technically making their collective age eligible for Medicare simply by his single presence).

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Here is Bart’s report:

Here's how it went down at yesterdays’ 3-on-3. Please forgive my grammar as I am doing this with bags of frozen veggies on my knees. The word most have gotten out about the STILL HERE squad as we had a bye on the first game and the first team we were to play forfeited. Instantly we were up 2-0! Our 1st game was a fight to the finish with Henderson and Greg taking it to the hole strong with a little help from your truly. We had the lead but their 3 point shooting got the better of us as we lost 25 to 21. The second game was somewhat ------ umm ---- how should i say, an old fashion butt whipp'in, Their speed and 3 point shooting was too much for us. All-and-all we had a great time and I really enjoyed playing ball with my son and nephew and not not once did they yell at me for making a bad play. They even gave the old guy a few passes (lol). The camera crew was pretty slow there so we have just a few pics.

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Followed by commentary from Damon

I am hoping that one of the pics shows Bart doing his impersonation of Lee Harvey Oswald in the basement garage. It seems that one of the youngsters hit him with a pass...in the "nads"...and we all do a collective groan, shall we?

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Sorry Damon --- it seems Bart censored that photo before he e-mailed them. No matter, imagining it is just as funny!

Thanks Bart, Greg and Henderson for representing!