The Senior Olympics
Wisconsin Senior Olympics, Inc. provides Wisconsin’s older adults the opportunity to maintain and improve their overall fitness and wellness, through recreational, social and competitive events. Once a year, at the end of summer, the committee sponsors a senior softball tournament (along with many other sporting events).
To see pictures of the teams from Racine, go to the bottom of this page and click on the team you want to view.
Once you are viewing the team picture, to find out more about a specific player, click on his name under the picture.
Since 2005 the Racine Senior Softball League has entered teams in the Senior Olympics.
In 2005 and 2006 we raised a team for the over-60 group.
It was fun, but we only had games against teams in the over-50 and over-55 leagues. It was a bit tough.
We didn't win any games against the younger fellows, but for our efforts each player received the
gold medal as we still won our division, being the only team in the over-60 league. And it was fun and a different experience being in a tournament.
We took a poll at the end of the games in 2006 and found that eight players on that team qualified for the over-65 competition.
Two more would qualify for over-65 in the next year. And we knew we had several more players that would qualify. So in 2007 we managed a team for the over-65 competition where there were more teams.
In 2007 we played against two other Over-65 teams. They were a bit more experience than we were, but we played well and won bronze medals.
In 2008 we went to Milwaukee with two teams: an Over-55 team and an Over-65 team. That was a pretty good representation for Racine.
In that year, thanks to a generous donation by Dick Gleissner, we wore jerseys.
There were three teams in the Over-65 tournament. We fairly well dominated one of the teams and could only challenge the other. We won silver medals.
Our Over-55 team played against an Over-60 all star team and should have won one of the games, but won some experience anyway.
We received the gold medal for that division.
But it was fun and our league is growing.
We will do better in future olympics.
We have about 6 players who qualify for the Over-70 division and if they stay healthy and behave themselves during the off season, we should have an Over-70 team soon where they can go up and challenge some of those Milwaukee Over-70 teams.
To see pictures of the teams click on the year that you are interested. To learn more about a player, click on the player's name.
