Older, but still on the ball

DES MOINES, Iowa — Playing basketball isn’t ladylike. That’s what Jewell Chapman’s high school principal told her in 1961 when he banned the girls basketball program.

“We were very frustrated,” said Mrs. Chapman, a forward for her high school team in Des Moines.

Nearly 50 years later, Mrs. Chapman is back on the court. She’s 62 and plays for the Hot Pink Grannies, joining about 10 women on a team whose uniforms are black bloomers and hot pink socks. They play in the Iowa Granny Basketball League.

It’s one of dozens of basketball leagues for women older than 50 that have sprung up nationwide. For some women, it’s an opportunity to exercise and socialize; for others, it’s a once-denied chance to compete.

“You see more and more senior women’s teams participating in state and national competitions and more recreational leagues,” said Michael Rogers, an associate professor in sports studies at Wichita State University. “In the future, it will be commonplace to have leagues like this.”

Annual surveys by the National Sporting Goods Association indicate the number of women 55 or older who play basketball at least 50 times a year has grown from 16,000 in 1995 to nearly 131,000 a decade later.

The women on the Hot Pink Grannies are good-natured but competitive come game time.

“I think I’m tough,” says Colleen Pulliam, 69, flexing her biceps at opponents in a game against the Strutters, known for their brilliant yellow socks.

Seconds later, she dives for the ball as it slips from a player’s hand and tosses it over her head to the forward waiting under the basket.

Granny Basketball Leagues and similar groups are scattered through much of the country, including California, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and the District. It’s part of a larger movement toward organized sports by older Americans, said Wojtek Chodzko-Zajko, head of the kinesiology department at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

“Gradually, as the boomers grow older, we’re going to have a cohort of people who have the expectation of remaining active,” said Mr. Chodzko-Zajko, who studies aging and physical activity. “And a majority of those people are going to want to do that in competitive sport.”

About 500 women from 47 states competed in basketball at the 2005 National Senior Games in Pittsburgh. And in response to growing interest by women, the formerly all-male Masters Basketball-National Championship will for the first time offer a women’s competition at its May event in Coral Springs, Fla.

There are even basketball camps for women 50 or older. Deb Smith of Portland, Maine, started her Not Too Late basketball camp last year and drew more than 50 women from 11 states. Ms. Smith, 52, plans another camp in August at Southern Maine Community College.

“They saw what their children had in experiencing sports and they didn’t have that,” she said.

But there are risks. Because basketball is such a physically demanding sport, doctors say older players risk cardiovascular problems, and some may aggravate existing arthritis conditions.

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