The Long Run January 2022
Association News
2022 Personal Best: Swimming’s Spiritual Warrior
No one tells the story of Senior Games better than our athletes. Since 2013 NSGA’s Personal Best initiative has profiled selected athletes whose interviews represent the positive attitude, perseverance through challenges and goal-oriented outlook that produces a healthy and active lifestyle. We believe this journey represents one’s true Personal Best.
We kick off the class of 2022 with Herman Kelly, a swimmer who is on a mission to teach underserved youth how to swim. Herman shares his own history about growing up during segregation when African Americans were not allowed access to public pools, and how his journey has led him to now be a preacher, a university teacher and a senior athlete swimming in the National Senior Games. Enjoy!
Herman Kelly Personal Best Feature
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Game On!
Early Registration Discount Ends January 26th
The 2022 National Senior Games presented by Humana is only four months away! NSGA wants to remind our athletes that the early discount registration deadline is Wednesday, January 26, 2022, so take advantage of the savings and get on the roster!
Registration will continue until March 1, 2022. The one-time open registration period will also continue until that date. This means that anyone age 50+ as of December 31, 2021 is eligible to register. As a reminder, the maximum number of registrants will be limited for certain sports and could reach capacity at any point during the registration process, so sign up soon. NSGA is unable to guarantee entry into sports/events that reach registration capacity. Make sure you complete your travel and hotel plans when you register to get better choices close to your competition venue.
Get in, go get a medal and help your state earn the NSG CUP Presented by KOHLER Walk-in Bath. The Cup will go to the state with the highest percentage of medals to the number of their athletes!
HELPFUL REGISTRATION LINKS
- Competition Schedules Page with Age Specific Schedule (which provides dates for most events and age groups) as well as Golf Course Assignments, Racquetball Schedule, Track & Field Schedule and Swimming Order of Events.
- NSGA Registration Webpage for registration dates, entry fees and deadlines.
- NSGA Hotels and Lodging Page – find guaranteed low-price rooms. Please be advised that once the NSGA Group Contracted inventory (NSGA Rates) is sold out, J Team Management and NSGA has no control of the best available rates being offered by the hotels.
Qualifying Begins for 2023 Games in Pittsburgh
2022 finds us in the unusual situation of having some qualifying games for 2023 held while athletes are also training to prepare for national competition this May in Greater Fort Lauderdale. Please keep in mind that we are returning to our traditional cycle and athletes will need to qualify this year at one of our 52 Member Games to register and compete in the National Senior Games coming to Pittsburgh in mid-2023.
The State Information page at NSGA.com is where you will find a calendar and contacts for our Member Games. Some states host games earlier in the year, while many others are still finalizing their plans for later this year. NSGA updates the page as soon as we receive the information from the state organization, so if the state you are interested in does not have specifics yet, please check back. See you in Pittsburgh!
Save the Date: Flame Arrival Ceremony Set for May 11th
We promised you beaches, and our very first gathering will put you there! Get ready to kick off “A Reunion For the Ages” with the 2022 Flame Arrival Ceremony to be held Wednesday, May 11 at Los Olas Oceanside Park (LOOP). The LOOP is a recent $78 million park upgrade that created a space for public events, and it’s the perfect outdoor setting for athletes to meet and celebrate the return of National Senior Games.
Watch for more details about the planned festivities as we carry the torch into Greater Fort Lauderdale!
2022 Venue Spotlight: Swimming
The Plantation Aquatics Complex has two Olympic size pools, each 50 meters by 25 yards and a Colorado Timing System used for competition. The facility regularly hosts competitive swim and dive meets and is home to the Plantation Swim and Dive Teams. Inside the main building you will find locker rooms with daily use lockers and showers. On deck, the Plantation Aquatic Complex features numerous shade tents, seating and two bathhouses.
The competition pool has been completely renovated using Myrtha materials and technology. The Plantation Aquatics Complex is also protected by a lightning prediction and warning system. It’s the perfect Florida swimming venue for the 2022 National Senior Games!
Nature Parks Offer a Wonderland for Visitors
Greater Fort Lauderdale is home to an impressive variety of flora and fauna. Explore this beautiful tropical paradise through its nature parks and discover the impressive ecosystem.
Greater Fort Lauderdale is the gateway to the Everglades, where wild beauty makes up almost two-thirds of the destination’s total area. Take an airboat ride and witness exotic flora, fauna, and wildlife from alligators to Florida panthers.
Take a guided kayaking tour at beautiful beachfront state parks. Choose among daytime ecotours, sunset tours, or full moon tours at Dr. Von D. Mizell-Eula Johnson State Park in Dania Beach or Hugh Taylor Birch State Park in Fort Lauderdale. The full moon tours include glowsticks and end on a sweet note with s’mores around a campfire.
For another perfect family outing, visit Secret Woods Nature Center, designated the first “urban wilderness area” in Florida in 1978. This Dania Beach park features nature trails, a boardwalk trail, a butterfly garden, and a nature exhibit hall.
Rent a kayak, canoe or paddleboard at West Lake Park in Florida’s Hollywood and paddle your way through winding mangrove-lined trails. Be on the lookout for osprey, vultures, crabs, turtles and ibis. If you paddle over to the connecting Anne Kolb Nature Center, you can visit the nature center or walk on beautiful boardwalk trails.
Heading out west, venture into Tree Tops Park in Davie for winding nature trails and horseback riding. Climb up into the canopy of a 28-foot-tall observation tower and check out a bird’s eye view of the lush scenery. Ride horses in this oasis of ancient live oaks, tropical hammocks and wetlands.
https://www.sunny.org/things-to-do/parks-and-nature
January Athlete of the Month
“Wrong Foot Ricky” has a Penchant for Perfection
Rick Parschen, 69, Strongsville, Ohio
A 300 game is the dream of all bowlers, and most never achieve it. Rick Parschen has hit the mark many times, including posting a 300 score while raking in medals in each of his three appearances in National Senior Games since 2015. Just how many does he have?
“As of last Thursday, I have 147,” he says almost incredulously.
The soft-spoken retired music teacher also has 96 800 series scores on his resume, plus a slew of 299 scores strewn along the way during four-plus decades of rolling the rock. Rick bowled intramurals in high school and made his college team at (where else?) Bowling Green State University. He says it took him two years to bowl 200, and four and a half years after he graduated before he chalked up his first 300 in 1979. The numbers are jaw-dropping, but Rick took it to another level after he seriously injured the gluteus medius muscle in his left leg two years ago. Unable to deliver the ball using his normal form, Rick was undaunted and learned to bowl off the opposite foot during rehab. How has that gone?
“Since February of last year, I have bowled four 300 games plus two 299 games off the wrong foot,” he says, adding with a chuckle, “That earned me the nickname Wrong Foot Ricky.” Rick has since made progress and recently returned to his normal bowling form. “I hope it lasts, but at least I have an option to go back to.”
With this talent, a pro career might have been an option for Rick, who played in some pro-am tournaments coming up but decided not to go for it. “I considered the rigors of the tour- you eat, you sleep, you bowl, that’s how it is,” he explains. “I kept my career as a high school music teacher and band director for 35 years. I felt I would have a more rewarding career to have an influence on these young lives, and it’s been an enjoyable experience.” Rick is currently in three leagues and coaches the bowling team at Padua Franciscan High School, the same school he graduated from.
Rick has competed in the US Bowling Congress since 1980 and discovered National Senior Games when they came to nearby Cleveland in 2013. He has even brought along his clarinet and played the National Anthem before competition each time. “It’s been a very uplifting experience. I’ve made great friends since 2013, many I never would have met elsewhere, and it’s like a reunion to see them again every two years.”
Now for the big question: How does Rick Parschen deal with the pressure as he is approaching a perfect score? “It has to be done one frame at a time,” he emphasizes. “Every frame is one step on the ladder, and you only look at the step in front of you and make sure to do the right things. If you look too far ahead and forget the step you’re on, you’ll miss it and fall on your chin.
“I remain as focused as I can and approach every game as if it’s the first time,” he continues. “I go through all the physical and mental motions to give myself the best chance, and if I execute I have a better than 50-50 shot it will be a strike.”
Rick is quick to add it is not automatic. “I tell people is there’s no entitlement in bowling. I’ve thrown good balls and got tapped and thrown lousy balls that turned into strikes. I just thank God for ones I get and work harder for the ones I don’t get. I’m humbled to have been given a great gift and avenues beyond my wildest dreams on how to go about it.”
What’s YOUR story? To submit yours, or to nominate a fellow athlete, Please Click Here.
Ageility Gets Into the Game, Sponsors New Athlete
Our great partner Ageility wants to have a real stake in the game, so they have sponsored 78-year-old Hugh “Mac” McCaffrey of Deer Creek, Florida to train with their experts and compete for the first time in May at the National Senior Games in power walking. They are documenting his journey on a special web page and will add regular video updates on his progress.
Watch for “Mondays with Mac” updates on NSGA’s Facebook and Instagram every other Monday, with the next one on January 24. Follow along and cheer Mac to the finish line!
Health and Well-Being
Play Safer – Take the SAFE Exam at the 2022 Games!
By now most of you have heard of the Senior Athlete Fitness Exam (SAFE), a fitness exam consistently offered for free over the past 5 Senior Games thanks to a partnership between the National Senior Games Association (NSGA) and APTA Geriatrics, an Academy of the American Physical Therapy Association.
Physical therapist Dr. Becca Jordre created SAFE and has been coordinating this service since 2011. The information she has collected on past athletes allows SAFE participants to see how they compare to other NSGA athletes of their age and gender. The program is designed to identify factors in older athletes in the areas of cardiovascular health, strength, flexibility and balance. Most athletes learn something new from the SAFE that can help reduce their risk of injury and enhance their sport performance.
An important skill among the best senior athletes is the ability to sense and feel how one’s body is doing as they train. The SAFE screening gives you specific and objective feedback on factors that will help any athlete improve their game. Moreover, this information helps NSGA’s Health and Well-being program provide resources in support of athlete performance and sustainability.
This May in Fort Lauderdale, the SAFE will be scheduled by appointment in an effort to serve as many athletes as possible. Although the program has screened a large number of athletes since 2015, it is the goal of NSGA to spread the benefits of SAFE to groups of Senior Game athletes who have not previously been engaged in past assessment offerings. Making this feature available now will contribute to increasing the overall number and the diversity of participants.
Walk-ins will be accepted but signing up in advance is encouraged to avoid a wait. Signing up is easy and can be done at https://tinyurl.com/NSGASAFE If you have difficulty, you can contact Dr. Jordre at be**********@*sd.edu or 605-658-6370. In the meantime, please contact your local physical therapist if you think you would benefit from a fitness assessment. Stay tuned for more information on the SAFE in future newsletters.
This article was prepared by Andrew Walker, MPH, NSGA Health and Well-being Director
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- Published in Newsletter
“Wrong Foot Ricky” has a Penchant for Perfection January 2022 Athlete of the Month
Rick Parschen wins silver in singles, gold in men’s doubles and bronze in mixed doubles for age group 60-64 during the bowling finals at the AMF Southtown Lanes for the National Senior Games in Minneapolis, MN on Wednesday, July 15, 2015. (Photo by © Alicia F Afshar)
Rick Parschen, 69, Strongsville, Ohio
A 300 game is the dream of all bowlers, and most never achieve it. Rick Parschen has hit the mark many times, including posting a 300 score while raking in medals in each of his three appearances in National Senior Games since 2015.
Just how many does he have? “As of last Thursday, I have 147,” he says almost incredulously.
The soft-spoken retired music teacher also has 96 800 series on his resume, plus a slew of 299 scores strewn along the way in four-plus decades of rolling the rock. Rick bowled intramurals in high school and made his college team at (where else?) Bowling Green State University. He says it took him two years to bowl 200, and four and a half years after he graduated before he chalked up his first 300 in 1979.
The numbers are jaw-dropping, but Rick took it to another level after he seriously injured the gluteus medius muscle in his left leg two years ago. Unable to deliver the ball using his normal form, Rick was undaunted and learned to bowl off the opposite foot during rehab. How has that gone?
“Since February of last year, I have bowled four 300 games plus two 299 games off the wrong foot,” he says, adding with a chuckle, “That earned me the nickname Wrong Foot Ricky.” Rick has since made progress and recently returned to his normal bowling form. “I hope it lasts, but at least I have an option to go back to.”
With this talent, a pro career might have been an option for Rick, who played in some pro-am tournaments coming up but decided not to go for it. “I considered the rigors of the tour- you eat, you sleep, you bowl, that’s how it is,” he explains. “I kept my career as a high school music teacher and band director for 35 years. I felt I would have a more rewarding career to have an influence on these young lives, and it’s been an enjoyable experience.” Rick is currently in three leagues and coaches the bowling team at Padua Franciscan High School, the same school he graduated from.
Rick has competed in the US Bowling Congress since 1980 and discovered National Senior Games when they came to nearby Cleveland in 2013. He has even brought along his clarinet and played the National Anthem before competition each time. “It’s been a very uplifting experience. I’ve made great friends since 2013, many I never would have met elsewhere, and it’s like a reunion to see them again every two years.”
Now for the big question: How does Rick Parschen deal with the pressure as he is approaching a perfect score? “It has to be done one frame at a time,” he emphasizes. “Every frame is one step on the ladder, and you only look at the step in front of you and make sure to do the right things. If you look too far ahead and forget the step you’re on, you’ll miss it and fall on your chin.
“I remain as focused as I can and approach every game as if it’s the first time,” he continues. “I go through all the physical and mental motions to give myself the best chance, and if I execute I have a better than 50-50 shot it will be a strike.”
Rick is quick to add it is not automatic. “I tell people is there’s no entitlement in bowling. I’ve thrown good balls and got tapped and thrown lousy balls that turned into strikes. I just thank God for ones I get and work harder for the ones I don’t get. I’m humbled to have been given a great gift and avenues beyond my wildest dreams on how to go about it.”
- Published in Athlete of the Month
Swimming’s Spiritual Warrior
Herman Kelly, 67, Baton Rouge, Louisiana
You can talk about skill, physical ability and focus as key elements needed to be a successful athlete at any age. One also needs the intangible boost and motivation that comes from having a passion for your sport to see it through.
Herman Kelly’s passion for swimming goes much deeper than the confines of a pool or his own goals and has impacted many more lives than his own.
Herman grew up at a time when segregation barriers still existed and African Americans had little to no choices for a safe place to swim. His parents made it a point to get lessons for their children, but neither they or the youngster had any idea how this would shape his growth and later provide a path to better aging.
In the following edited conversation, Herman explains that his name translates as “African Warrior” and his passion for competition is fierce, but a bigger passion led him to the clergy to be a spiritual warrior serving others.
Herman became a lifeguard and also swam with his high school team. He was delighted to obtain a partial scholarship to Morehouse College in Atlanta, which had the most dominant swim team among historically black colleges at the time. He also shares that he first felt the call from God during this time but fought it off. While earning his master’s degree in education and aquatics at Springfield College, he made the decision to become a preacher and went on to Boston University for a second master’s degree in divinity.
He began as a preacher in Massachusetts, and then moved to Louisiana to lead the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge. He concurrently became an African American religion instructor at Louisiana State University. 22 years later, he is now an adjunct professor teaching African American Studies, but the campus and the greater community know Herman better as a swimmer on a mission.
Part of that mission is personal, because he says his workload caused him to fall off from swimming, and he realized in 2014 he had to get back to the pool to regain his health and fitness. He discovered Senior Games and has been training and competing ever since.
In our talk, Herman reveals his greater mission has been to teach African American youth to swim, a passion that is rooted in his memory of witnessing a friend drown as a teenager. His church operates the only swimming ministry in the state that teaches dozens of children annually. You will also learn how his wife’s battle with breast cancer has created a second passion to raise money for cancer survivors.
Overcoming life’s challenges and obstacles is key to pursuing a Personal Best lifestyle. Herman Kelly’s faith and his parent’s wisdom have given him the “weapons” to forge his path as a spiritual warrior. We all have our own path, and Herman hopes his story inspires you on yours.
Herman, tell us how you started swimming. Who influenced you?
My parents. One day, they told my sister and me that they were going to enroll us in swimming lessons. The only place we could swim was at a segregated pool called Washington Heights in Jacksonville, FL. It was a phobia for African Americans to learn how to swim because most couldn’t swim in a pool, so we would swim in a creek or in a pond. And if you swim in a creek or a pond, you know they have undercurrents, undertows and drop-offs. So my parents wanted us to learn how to swim.
My father would take us to lessons and they were .25 cents each. I remember my coach saying, ‘Mr. Kelly, you will never learn how to swim until you learn to let yourself go and let the water hold you up.’ I kept going every year doing recreation swim, and then I was a lifeguard at 16 and got on my high school team. Everybody knew Herman as one of the best black swimmers in the community. Everybody would want to race against us and we would always beat them. My first swimming trophy felt like a million dollars. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Herman’s Morehouse team- he is second from right on the top row.
Then I got a partial scholarship to Morehouse College and made the swim team, which was like the football team at a school like LSU. They were the national black champions in the ‘70s. My uncle was my mentor and he showed me a catalog and told me Morehouse was a good school. My classmates told me I wasn’t smart enough and that I was wasting my time, but I got in and made the team. I wasn’t their best swimmer, but I could swim everything and did it all four years. I felt like royalty when I came home from college.
Before that, I got called by God when I was 18 but I wanted to have fun instead of preaching. I fought the call while I was at Morehouse.
So you became a preacher?
Yes, after I went to Springfield College in Massachusetts for my master’s in education with a concentration in aquatics. Springfield is a mecca for athletes. I wanted to be a swim coach and Coach Silvia hired me as a grad assistant.
While I was at Springfield I joined a church, and the pastor looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Kelly, why are you running from your call? It’s all over you that you are running.’ That was 1980. I finally surrendered after 10 years. I called Boston University and made an appointment to meet with the dean. I went there and got my Masters of Divinity. After graduating, I started pastoring at my first church in Newport, Rhode Island in 1986. I also worked at a prison as a teacher at the same time in Connecticut.
How did you end up going south to Baton Rouge?
While I was in Rhode Island the bishop for both Louisiana and Mississippi asked me to come down three times. The fourth time is when I decided to move. I was in Mississippi first where my son and daughter were born. Then I went to Louisiana where I have been the pastor at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Baton Rouge.
You are also currently teaching at LSU. How did that come about?
I had taught religion at the community college level, and when I came to Baton Rouge I saw an announcement in the paper that LSU was looking for an African American religion instructor. I interviewed in the spring of 2000, and next semester will be 22 years that I have been on LSU’s campus.
What do you teach?
I was in the religion department for awhile, and then the director of African American studies asked me to join him and that’s where I am now. I teach introduction to African American studies and introduction to the civil rights movement, and I also teach an education course.
Turning point- Herman with wife Lindam, son Herman III and daughter Tiffany in 2014.
You are a busy man, and there’s more we want to ask you. But getting back to your swimming, how did you come into Senior Games?
I swam recreationally once I got out of college, but I messed around and got away from it because I was raising a family. That was the beginning of starting to lose it. I had been active most of my life and then let myself go. I hit the wall in 2014. I went to my son’s graduation from the police academy, and when I looked back at the pictures I could see that I had a gut. So I went to the doctor and my cholesterol was off the charts. He said to me ‘If you don’t start exercising, I am going to have to put you on medication’ and I said, ‘I don’t think so Doc.’ He gave me six weeks to get my numbers down or I had to start taking medication.
I looked myself in the mirror and said, ‘You can do better than this.’ So I started swimming in the morning and in the afternoon at the LSU rec center. My cholesterol was 205 and after the six weeks it was 166 and I had lost 15 pounds. The nurse said, ‘I guess you are on medication’ and I answered, ‘Yeah, I’m swimming.’ You don’t give an athlete an ultimatum. My name means African Warrior. I’ve been fighting all my life, and I wasn’t going to go down without a fight.
When did you realize you wanted to swim competitively in Senior Games? I heard about the state games coming up, and I had a student named Kit Hanley who was on the LSU swim team. I asked her if she would help get me ready because I wanted to compete again. I went to the natatorium after her practice, and she would stay and work with me. I had a second student at the rec center who also offered advice.
I started swimming 10 laps at the university rec center and worked my way up to a mile and a half. Then I swam in my first Louisiana Senior Games in 2018. They had cancelled swimming in 2017, so I organized the games at the YMCA and we got to swim in 2018. I won the butterfly, IM and breaststroke and qualified for the National Senior Games in Albuquerque in 2019.
My son Herman III (we call him Osby so we would know who she was talking to) came with me to New Mexico, and I came in 22nd in the nation in breaststroke and IM, and 18th in the butterfly. Osby told me to up my game. He told me that I need to join masters swimming. I didn’t know if I could afford it or if I could keep up with them. I joined LSU Masters Swimming for about a year and got up at 5am to swim and train. I won four gold medals in my age group at the state games in 2019.
I’m now swimming for the team at Crawfish Aquatics here in town. I’ve always taught private lessons at Crawfish, but I swam at LSU because it was convenient. It was a bit of a dilemma – divided allegiance, you know – and I woke up one day and decided to do everything at Crawfish. Besides, because of the pandemic you had to reserve a lane at LSU and there might be three people in a lane. Coach Nan would have the guy open up the pool for me at four in the morning.
You’re on track to great things, Herman. What are your goals for the 2022 Games in Florida next May?
My goal for the next Nationals is to be in the top 15 or top 12 in all of my events. My ultimate goal is to be a national champion in 10 years. I will be 77 by that time.
One of the great things we heard you are doing is teaching swimming to underserved youth as part of your ministry. Tell us how you began doing this.
First of all, the reason why more African Americans don’t swim today is because of racism. We didn’t have access on many levels until recent history. I couldn’t have gone to LSU as an African American when I was growing up in the ‘60s, and back then people threw acid in some pools to keep black people out. I couldn’t have joined Bolles school, which is famous for having many Olympians.
When I was a teenager my friend drowned so it was always on my mind. Every summer my heart aches because I hear of African Americans drowning. In 2011, I heard that seven people had drowned in Shreveport and I said to myself, ‘That’s a shame. Somebody ought to do something about that.’ So the Spirit spoke to me and said, ‘You know how to swim, why don’t you do something about that?’
My mission in life is now to teach private swimming lessons for underserved people. I started the Dr. James Haines Swimming Ministry – it’s named after my swimming coach at Morehouse. My congregation serves 66 children. Ours is the only black swimming ministry in the state of Louisiana.
Do you have other community projects with swimming?
Yes, and it’s something very close to me. I wanted to swim to raise money for cancer to honor my wife Linda. She got diagnosed with breast cancer in 2014. She was in remission from 2015 to 2019 but it came back as stage four metastatic breast cancer. We thought we had beat it.
I worked with Coach Nan Fontenot at Crawfish Aquatics to organize a “Swim for Life” event and we raised about $7,000. Linda came out of the hospital to be at the event.
Linda passed recently, so next year, I am going to call it “Swim for Linda.” This year we raised about $10,000. After the last one, I got a call from the Patient Advocate Foundation, and they said because we raised so much money they named a scholarship after her for a student who is cancer survivor. The young lady who received the scholarship is a biomedical major.
Now they are doing do this scholarship annually, and I was invited to be on the board of the organization. I like that I get to help pick who gets the scholarship. Last year, we were swimming for Linda’s life, so now we are going to swim for Linda’s memory.
We’re proud of you, Herman. You must feel proud to honor her.
Yes. And since she’s been gone I still feel her presence in the pool. I pray to God before I swim, but when I’m in there and starting to lag I call out in my mind, “Help me, Angel Linda” and she helps me finish my swim strong.
It’s amazing to see how your life was shaped by just learning to swim, and you are doing great things to serve and help others.
My parents were my Godsend and I have dedicated this journey I’m on to them. I had no idea the impact that those swimming lessons would have on my life. They just told us we were taking lessons, and look where it has taken me.
- Published in 2022 PB, Personal Best Featured Athletes