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WILLIMANTIC – One of the players played six-on-six basketball as a teenager. But she wasn’t allowed to shoot the ball and didn’t learn until she was 50.
Another played for the UConn women’s basketball team in the early ’70s and didn’t play for 40 years after that.
Another was a coach for years but wanted to find a place to play basketball herself.
They all rediscovered their passion for playing with the Connecticut Senior Women’s Basketball program, which has six teams of women ages 50-86 who practice and play half-court, three-on-three basketball year-round in different locations around the state.
The Connecticut High Fives – the 80-85-year-old team – have been around the longest, since 2000. The Connecticut Classics 2 team, whose players are ages 65-70, has been in existence for over a decade and its members have won gold medals at four of the last five National Senior Games in their age group.
The Connecticut teams will be headed to the National Senior Games, held biannually, in Pittsburgh July 7-14.
It all started a little over 20 years ago, when a group of senior women – inspired by the UConn women’s success – put together a basketball team to compete in the Massachusetts Senior Games. Many of them were runners; some had never played basketball. Since they were the only ones in their age group, they won and qualified for the National Senior Games. Mary Haines, Marj Sasiela (both of whom are deceased) and Jeannette Cyr – all top age-group runners – were some of the players on that team that started in 1998 and played in the 1999 National Senior Games.
Pat Haines, Mary’s daughter, still plays. So does Joan Youngs of Tolland, who played on a second, younger team from the state, the Hot Shots, in the 1999 national games in Orlando, Fla.
Now 86, Youngs is the oldest member of the High Fives.
“You got to keep going and have fun doing it,” said Youngs, who has been to every National Senior Games since 1993 and will also compete in the javelin and discus in Pittsburgh. “I mean, I’m a competitor but I have fun, too.
“It gives me a two-hour practice every week and something that’s different than working out. I swim in the summer. I used to play softball, but I gave that up two years ago. I bowl. I like being out and being with people – I’m not a sit-down, stay-at-home person.”
Her teammate Dency Sargent, of Holyoke, Mass., played in a town women’s league when she was in high school in Greenwich but she wasn’t allowed to cross half court because the women had to play six-on-six basketball.
“It was back in the days when you couldn’t cross the middle line,” said Sargent, who will be 82 in July. “I was a guard. I never learned to shoot. Which is annoying.
“There were three of us that were tall. We were always the guards. I didn’t really start to play (again) until I was 50. I’ve had to learn a lot, and believe me, I’ve worked pretty hard at this. It’s fun.”
Youngs had a different experience, growing up in Maine. She played on a girls team at Thornton Academy in Saco in the early 50s, as well as on a town team that played five-on-five.
“We had red and white uniforms,” Youngs recalled. “There were 10 teams and we traveled all over.”
Gail DiMaggio lives in West Hartland but she travels to the Senior Center in Willimantic every Friday to practice with her team, the Connecticut Classics 2.
DiMaggio, 70, played at UConn during the 1970-71 and 1971-72 seasons before she left school.
She hadn’t played for nearly 40 years when she happened to be watching a UConn women’s game on CPTV in 2000 and saw a group of senior women’s basketball players taking phone calls for pledges at halftime.
“I’m like – ‘What? This exists?’” DiMaggio said. “I called in and made my pledge and I asked right away, ‘How do I get to play?’”
The hardest part was the conditioning, DiMaggio said.
“You think you’re 19 years old again,” she said, laughing.
Her teammates were impressed she had played at UConn.
“Yeah – until they saw me play,” she said. “That’s my claim to fame. It was before Geno. We weren’t very good.”
Brenda Westberry, who grew up in Hartford and played at Farmington High, coached AAU and recreational teams in Rhode Island for over 20 years but she wanted to play again. She found a senior women’s team in Massachusetts, and they told her about the Connecticut group, which was closer. Now she organizes the practices and serves as a player-coach.
They practice Sundays in Newtown, Mondays in Ledyard and Fridays in Willimantic in an effort to get to different parts of the state. There are about 40 women in the group, but as Westberry points out, they’re aging, and they’re looking for new players aged 50 and up to join the group.
“I’m 59 now and I’m one of the younger players,” said Westberry, who plays for the Connecticut Prime, the 55-59 team. “I want to make sure we carry on their legacy.”
The players said the camaraderie and the challenge are why they keep coming back.
“Oh my,” Sargent said. “It’s about the team. Going to nationals, going to the tournaments is so much fun. It’s an environment of older people who are active. They might have canes and crutches, but when it’s time for their sport, they do it.
“A lot of them bring their grandchildren to watch so you have young people, who for them it’s normal that their grandparents are active and participating in sports. It’s really a wonderful experience.”
For more information on CT Senior Women’s Basketball, go to www.ctsrwomensbasketball.com.
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