May 2026 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Maximilian “Max” Cavalli, 64
Scarborough, Maine
Powerlifting and Cycling

Photo courtesy Maximilian Cavalli.

All senior athletes experience illness, injuries or other setbacks. Many, like powerlifter and cyclist Maximilian Cavalli, say their fitness lifestyle helped them make a successful comeback.

Some challenges are more difficult to overcome, and Maximilian faced one of the toughest when he suffered a stroke while on the road for his sales job in 2016. He felt a little tired after a light evening workout in the hotel gym and woke up the next morning with part of his left side frozen.

According to the American Stroke Association, someone has a stroke every 40 seconds in the United States. It’s important to know the warning signs, because the faster a stroke is treated, the more likely a patient is to recover.

“…I learned a full recovery is incremental and takes time,” Maximillian says. “My daughter is an emergency room doctor, and she was very clear that 90 percent of the recovery from a stroke occurs in the first year. Anything after that is incremental.”

Instead of worrying about his fate, Maximilian got to work in rehab — and his persistence paid off. His doctors said that while most stroke survivors attain 75% recovery, they rated his at 97%.

The Brooklyn native credits his lifelong commitment to staying active — from running at the University of Maine to kayaking and competing as both a recreational and competitive cyclist — with keeping his body strong enough to respond well to the stroke. Still, he admits that life’s responsibilities had cut into his training time, and he wasn’t in the shape he ideally wanted to be.

It was later discovered that he needed PFO surgery for a congenital hole in his heart. Maximilian surprised his doctors at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston with his fast rebound. “It was the same team that worked with football great Tedy Bruschi. Afterwards, they said my recovery was the fourth best that they’d ever witnessed, one of which was Tedy, and the other two were Olympians.”

Maximilian is grateful that his employer, Mannington Floors, provided six months of paid leave to support his recovery. The gesture has paid off for the 110-year-old company as he has become their national director of education market segments, saying his sport activities have contributed to his business success.

Finding Powerlifting in Senior Games

Maximilian’s Senior Games journey began in 2018 when a close friend who played basketball in the Maine Senior Games was competing while battling cancer.

Maximilian decided to compete in her honor in Maine, and then attended his first National Senior Games in 2019. He entered the Team Triathlon, where his bike segment helped win a gold medal in the 55+ category.

Maximilian came back to The Games in 2022 and 2023 to compete in Cycling Time Trials. When Powerlifting was added for the 2025 Games in Des Moines, he eagerly signed on. He had lifted weights for decades and was drawn to Powerlifting disciplines before the announcement. Now he could do the 10K Time Trial while also pouring his heart into lifting competitions.

Left: Maximilian looking on the Powerlifting competition at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana. Right: Maximilian lifting in the gym. Photo courtesy Maximilian Cavalli.

He was rewarded with a gold medal in Powerlifting and is confident he will top the podium again at the 2027 National Senior Games presented by Humana in Tulsa.

The two events are a perfect pairing for Maximilian. “I believe that cycling and lifting both support each other…in the bike riding, you’re strengthening your legs for lifting, and then the lifting is strengthening your legs for the bike.”

Deep Family Motivation and Inspiration

Maximillian and one of his grandchildren. Photo courtesy Maximilian Cavalli.

Maximilian credits his parents for giving him a foundation and an appreciation of family. “My father was blind, so as a result, I saw the challenges that he had to live with just going through life and figuring out how to send me to prep school and college,” he recalls. “He provided a vision to understand that you’re probably going to have to make pivots with your journey, and to make accommodations for yourself and be patient.”

The athlete also always wears a diamond pendant with the letter M that belonged to his mother, Mary. “The people that you carry are part of your life and who you are,” he stresses. “The first step is acknowledging that you’re blessed and then understand that you have a responsibility to be a light for other people.”

“I’m just so grateful that I have my beautiful wife, two children and five grandchildren, and that I can do all these things with them,” he notes joyfully. “They say, ‘My grandfather’s the strongest grandfather in the neighborhood!’. I have amazing joy in my life.”

He then adds, “I believe that God has given me these challenges to be a light for other people, to help them realize that they can be more than they think they can be.”

April 2026 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Bonita Robins, 87
Topeka, Kansas
Bowling, Cornhole

Bonita Robbins points to her name on the Humana name wall at the National Senior Games in 2025. Photo courtesy Bonita Robbins.

“Long Live the Challenge” is the motto of the National Senior Games, and the athletes who keep coming back to compete for decades are our best examples for active aging. 87-year-old Bonita Robins is amazed she has been bowling “every bit of 55 years” and has not missed a National Senior Games since 1995.

Bonita is a proud Kansas native, proclaiming, “I was born in Wamego, where the Wizard of Oz Museum is located.” Her journey is particularly inspiring because she shares she is not a natural athlete.

“Oh, heavens no,” she responds to the question. “At field day in middle school, I couldn’t run because I’d get a pain in my side when I started running, so that was it.” While she didn’t do much organized sports, her father wisely guided her to include physical activity in her life.

“He thought that girls needed to have something to do outside, and I was an only child, sitting in the house reading, doing stitchery crafts, that type of thing,” she recalls. “He thought I needed to be out in the sunshine, so he taught me how to pitch horseshoes.”

The activity struck a ringer, and it became the first sport she played regularly. Bonita didn’t begin bowling until after the second of her three children arrived in 1972. Her fitness routine became bowling in the winter and horseshoes in the summer, sometimes playing in as many as five bowling leagues at once.

She has earned local and state hall of fame recognition through her consistent participation and for serving on the local association board and helping run their senior tournaments for 20 years.

Photo courtesy Bonita Robbins.

She also became a certified coach to work with youth. “My Saturday mornings were spent at the bowling alley helping young kids improve their games,” she says. “I look back and think about all the kids that went on and took championships.”

Bonita began competing in the Kansas Senior Games when she aged up and has not missed a biennial National Senior Games since 1995. While she speaks proudly of the 19 national medals she has earned, she says maintaining her health and enjoying social connections through her sporting life are the real rewards. She also had an epiphany that shifted her focus to older adults.

The Senior Games Promise

Bonita says winning gold in her first National Senior Games in San Antonio made her stop and appreciate where she was in her life. “My partner and I were so shocked that we did that on our first try. We couldn’t believe we had done that,” she recalls.

“I looked at her and said, ‘You know what? I’m not real religious, but I’m going to make a vow to God right now. He has given me the privilege of winning this gold medal. I will do everything I can do in the future to promote Senior Olympics bowling, to get other people introduced into it, and follow it as long as I can.’ And that’s what I’ve done.”

When the Kansas Senior Games Advisory Council needed a secretary, she eagerly stepped into the role for 17 years, having had a long career in office administration. She also never misses a recruiting opportunity to tell others about Senior Games. The fact that Bonita has represented Kansas as a flag or sign bearer five times in the Parade of Athletes at Nationals testifies to her popularity and influence.

National Senior Games 2017 Parade of Athletes. Photo courtesy Bonita Robbins.

“This is all terrifically important to me,” she says earnestly. “I have made friends nationwide. I absolutely enjoy seeing them every two years. Sometimes it’s kind of hard to say goodbye when we leave, especially at our age now, because we don’t know if it will be the final goodbye. But you can’t replace that camaraderie. I tell everybody, you have no idea what it’s like until you experience it.”

Bonita also still competes in a second sport at Nationals, first with Horseshoes and now with Cornhole starting in 2022 after the former was discontinued. “I like cornhole. It involves your arm, eye and hand coordination. The bags are lighter than the horseshoes, too,” she explains. And, as years before, she was surprised to win two gold medals in her first try at the 2022 National Senior Games presented by Humana in Fort Lauderdale.

Through it all, Bonita is grateful to have had an active life with few medical problems and to have enjoyed perfect National Senior Games attendance for 30 years. Her advice to others at 87 is simple.

“Stay active. Try to eat healthy. Get a good night’s sleep. Because that’s very important for your body so it can repower for the next day. And every morning I wake up, I say, thank you God for another day.”

March 2026 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Kinney Baughman, 72
Vilas, North Carolina
Basketball

Photo courtesy Kinney Baughman.

Some people stand out in a room. In the midst of the boisterous action and noise of men’s Basketball at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana, Kinney Baughman quietly drew our attention as he stood courtside. While Kinney is tall, it was his Einstein-esque hairdo, piercing eyes and beaming smile that struck us.

The kicker was glancing down to see that he was barefoot. Does he really play basketball barefoot?

“No, I just don’t like to wear shoes between games because I want my feet to dry out,” he replies with a laugh. “But yeah, I’m an old country boy from South Carolina. I grew up going barefoot and have always had a barefoot running style.”

Kinney reveals he’s a lifelong athlete. He enjoys running, but his main sport is basketball. He was the first from his small high school to obtain an athletic scholarship (to Appalachian State University) and went on to compete professionally in Europe for one year as a young adult.

Decades later, he found Senior Games and opened a new chapter that includes returning to international basketball competition as a masters athlete.

“I just never saw this coming,” he says. “If you told me that I’d still be playing competitive basketball on the level that I’m playing at 72 years old, I’d have said you’re out of your mind. All of a sudden, I find myself with this organization and making friends. It’s been great.”

Kinney, #8, competing with the Land of Waterfalls team at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana.

A Brush with Greatness, and the Country Boy Goes to Belgium

One college highlight was playing for Press Maravich, father of the legendary “Pistol Pete” Maravich, when the coach came to Appalachian State University from LSU.

“I idolized Pete because we’re about the same body type. I thought it was the greatest thing in the world that I was going to be playing for Press Maravich,” he recalls.

It did not turn out quite as he hoped at first. “I was recruited by the former coach, and I rode the bench most of that senior year,” he laments. But when his team was taking a beating by the Citadel later in the season, Maravich threw Kinney into the game in exasperation. He did not disappoint and played a significant role for the rest of the season. He even asked Kinney to join a team he was going to coach in Sweden after he graduated, but at the time, it didn’t work out.

After earning his philosophy degree, Kinney built log cabins and helped a close friend restore the Profile Trail on nearby Grandfather Mountain while waiting for his next inspiration. But the seed was planted, and three years later, Kinney was invited to play roundball for a pro team in Belgium – a life-altering experience.

“The year in Belgium was the best year of my life in so many ways – the culture, the language, the people, and the best beer in the world! For a redneck boy from Wagener, South Carolina, to go over there and have those experiences was just unreal.”

Kinney then obtained a teaching fellowship on his way to a masters degree from the University of Georgia, where he played intramural basketball to feed his sports fix. Kinney returned to North Carolina after earning his degree and eventually launched a 30-year career as a professor of philosophy and interdisciplinary studies at Appalachian State. He then transitioned to a technology career in Internet programming and computer support.

But he is better known as a pioneer in the craft beer brewing revolution of the ‘80s, and his journey to Belgium helped inspire him to try home brewing.

Kinney earned the nickname “Bubbleman” for delighting attendees at local festivals with giant bubbles. Photo courtesy Kinney Baughman.

“Bubbleman” Slam Dunks as a Brewmaster

“I ordered a beer-making kit from an ad in Mother Earth News and brewed my first batch of beer in 1980,” he says. “I wondered if you can make a beer as good as Budweiser at home. My beer came out really good, and I thought, ‘The hell with Bud – this is my ticket back to Belgium!’”

He did not return to Belgium, but his beer prowess led him to become brewmaster at the second craft brewery in North Carolina. Being a self-described gadgeteer, Kinney also invented an upside-down fermentation system and traveled around the country selling it. He then became an award-winning head craft brewer at the Tumbleweed Grille in Boone.

Kinney has also become known in the region as “Bubbleman” because he often brings a bubble gun to events like the High Country Beer Festival and whimsically blows bubbles for everyone.

Discovering A New Basketball Chapter Through Senior Games

The next turn in Kinney’s storied life came when he learned about the North Carolina Senior Games in 2007. After years of playing pickup games with other faculty, he was amazed he was on a team again, enjoying local and state competitions and winning medals.

Since playing in his first National Senior Games in 2015, Kinney’s teams have won two silver medals, so earning gold is high on his bucket list for Tulsa in 2027. “I want that so bad I can taste it!”

Kinney and teammates at the 2022 National Senior Games presented by Humana. Photo courtesy Kinney Baughman.

Injuries have almost convinced Kinney to quit at times, but the rewards have been worth it. “I didn’t realize how much being on a basketball team was in my DNA. There’s just a brotherhood there that’s unmatched,” he asserts.

Kinney is also stunned that his journey has led him back to playing basketball in Europe. At Nationals in 2022, Darrell Cavanaugh, the captain of the Capo Classics team Kinney played against, urged him to join his Team USA in the FIMBA championship series, informally called “The World Cup,” which draws from 250,000 masters players around the world. He will travel to Portugal this summer for his third international masters event.

Team USA and Team Italy at an international masters basketball competition. Photo courtesy Kinney Baughman.

In recent years, Kinney was invited to join the North Carolina Senior Games Board of Directors, which he humbly accepted. “I was an ambassador for the local and state games already, and I’m kind of a big personality, so they knew they could count on me for a good media quote,” he says.

“Being asked to serve on this board was one of the greatest honors of my life,” he continues. “I love Senior Games, and I love all those people. And I’m lucky North Carolina has one of the strongest programs in the country.”

February 2026 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Brenda “B.J.” Jones, 65
Clarksville, Tennessee
Softball

Image courtesy Brenda Jones.

Maintaining an active lifestyle is essential, but it’s just one aspect of robust aging. Finding social connections and keeping your brain engaged are also key to longevity.

Senior softball pitching ace Brenda Jones has known this intuitively for her entire life and is excited to now have time to explore her creative side as an author.

“I’ve been playing softball ever since I was like six years old, and I finally published my first book at the age of 58,” the Tennessee native shares. “It’s never too late to try something new that’s going to improve you.”

A Lifelong Love of Sports

Brenda, known by most as B.J., is proud to be a late-blooming author, but it’s clear her entire life has revolved around sports. She grew up in a blended family with 13 siblings in Union City, a small west Tennessee town with one high school. All she cared about was reading books and if there were enough kids around to play basketball and softball.

By the time she became a teenager, B.J. was playing on a mostly adult community softball team that went on the road in the summers. “We’d get in our cars and go to different places – Jackson, Tennessee, Cairo, Illinois, Dyersburg, Tennessee – just wherever we could find teams to play,” she recalls.

Image courtesy Brenda Jones.

There was always time to play ball, even throughout her 26-year career as a banking compliance officer and busy mother. She also found her wedding diamond on a diamond, so to speak.

“I went to watch some neighborhood guys play baseball, and that’s where I first saw this really cute guy, and he ended up becoming my husband, Anthony. We’re both pitchers, and he had a college career at Middle Tennessee State. We’ve been married for 42 years, so that was a nice perk!”

A competitive nature led B.J. to embrace the role of a pitcher. “You’re the captain of the team out there, right? Everything starts and ends with what you do on the mound,” she says. “The mental battle never stops. If I walk somebody, I have to push ‘reset’ from batter to batter and inning to inning. Pitchers can’t take what happened in the prior inning back to the mound. We have to remain engaged the entire time and focus on one batter at a time.” She then adds, “I pray a lot on the mound.”

“My accuracy is not always what it should be,” she continues with a growing smile. But when I’m on, there’s nothing more exciting than striking someone out looking. I love that!”

Finding “Extra Innings” with Senior Games

In her late 40s, B.J. was playing on a women’s league team and was invited to play in the Nashville qualifier for the 2011 National Senior Games presented by Humana in Houston. She turned 50 in time to join the team and fell in love with her team experience.

B.J. continued playing regional tournaments with various teams until she was invited to join the East Coast Gems in 2018. The team, now in the 60+ division and called Gems Next Level, has kept its core players and found success, winning division gold medals at the National Senior Games in 2023 & 2025. They also have won gold the past two years against strong competition at the Huntsman World Senior Games.

“I love my teammates. These ladies started out as my friends, and now they’re my family,” she says. “When we play in Nashville, I live 45 minutes from the ballfield and will host teammates and a barbecue. One time, I had eight of my teammates come stay at my house, and I loved every minute of it.”

The Gems Next Level at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana. Image courtesy Brenda Jones.

She says softball also taught her lessons about perseverance. “I ruptured my Achilles on my right foot during a softball game, and it was the hardest thing for me to be away from it,” she says. “But I appreciated the sport more, and it made me work harder to rehab so I could get back out here. So, even if a challenge comes, don’t be afraid of the challenge, because you can grow through it.”

The Author Emerges

B.J. has been writing poetry as a hobby since grade school, but during her banking career writing was mostly relegated to communications and analytical regulatory reports. Eventually, she was able to follow the dream of becoming an author and penned her first novel, “Not Yet a Woman,” which earned a Distinguished Favorite award for women’s literature in 2019.

Eight years later, she is still writing and has her own “W.C. Child” webpage. The third novel of her planned trilogy will be completed in 2026. She has also produced a spiritual guide and two books of poetry, but relishes being a storyteller. “I love the challenge. I like writing because I get to be somebody else through the characters.”

Speaking of being someone else, we asked why she uses W.C. Child as her pseudonym. “My father, Willmor Caldwell, never got a chance to see me publish a book. To honor him, my pen name stands for “Willmor Caldwell’s Child.”

Acting on a dream to become a writer in midlife has empowered Brenda to share advice with friends. “If you ever stop wanting to grow and take on new ideas, then you’re mentally defeated. It’s never too late,” she says, adding, “We also all need people around us. We were not meant to walk through this life alone. And even if we don’t always agree, I get to learn something about you, and you get to learn something about me.”

Watch an interview with Brenda at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana below!

January 2026 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

James “Jim” DeGoey, 76
Fitchburg, Wisconsin
Recumbent Cycling

Image courtesy Jim DeGoey.

Recumbent Cycling Time Trials were introduced to the National Senior Games in 2022, providing a way for cyclists with physical limitations a way to compete using specially designed low-profile bikes.

76-year-old Jim DeGoey, a veteran of more than 150 competitive races since he took up cycling in midlife, is grateful to have this alternative pathway after a horrific hit-and-run accident nearly five years ago.

“On an early morning training ride, I was struck by a kid on an electric scooter and thrown over the handlebars. My helmeted head impacted the asphalt trail surface,” Jim recalls. “I suffered fractures in my neck and upper back, along with four fractured ribs. Subsequent spine surgery fused 15 vertebrae that left me with slouched shoulders and an immobile neck, but thankfully, no paralysis. It took almost a year of failed attempts to realize that I would no longer be able to ride my road bike, let alone race my time trial bike.”

The First Pivot: Runner to Cyclist

While Jim enjoyed riding his Schwinn bike as a kid, it was running that captured his imagination at 15. “The first race I ran was a two-mile cross-country race at the boarding school my parents sent me to,” he says. “I broke the school record by a minute and a half, and that ignited me to be a runner.”

Jim made his varsity cross-country and track teams, but says bad coaching turned him off. “The joke at the time was that he was practicing a training method called PTA – pain, torture and agony,” he says with a laugh. “The coach sat under a tree, chain-smoking cigarettes while we were doing hill repeats.” He quit the team and did not try to join any teams while attending the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

He did, however, continue to run. A lot.

Right to left: Jim DeGoey, Tracy Drews (Jim’s coach), and Paul DeGoey (Jim’s bother). Image courtesy Paul DeGoey.

“I just ran just for exercise, and it got to the point that I was doing 100 miles a week,” he says. After becoming a freelance commercial graphic artist, Jim began competing in local road races. “I had no training. I had no coach. It was just the sheer joy of running.”

Jim only paused his pace to serve five years in the Army and four more as an active reserve. When he settled in Northern Virginia he hit the roads and trails again. “I didn’t compete at all. I was just running for fitness and fun for 20 years,” he explains.

As he approached 50, Jim had to pivot. “I developed a hiatal hernia, and my GP said my running was done and suggested I get on a bike. So I did, and when I went out on the bike trails, I’d get passed by ‘the hammerheads,’ the guys that were going as fast as they can. And I thought I can do that.”

Just like that, a competitive cyclist was born.

Jim initially self-coached and gradually joined a local bike team. Despite not finishing some races and rarely making the podium for a decade, he was determined to keep improving. By 2013, he reached a milestone and won his first cycling race, 50 years after his high school running triumph. Topping the podium fueled Jim to qualify for the 2015 National Senior Games presented by Humana with a goal of eventually winning a national championship.

Then, everything changed again with the crash.

A Life-Altering Setback and Ultimate Victory

Jim was determined to overcome his disability and new challenges. “Because I have a fused neck, I needed help to guide me across road intersections. If I want to look to the left or the right, I have to move my entire body,” he explains. “My regular bike just didn’t work out.”

There are two- and three-wheel recumbent designs, and the trike version turned out to be best for Jim, who quickly found the same joy of movement. “I started training in May 2022, and I’ve already logged 1,166 training sessions and almost 19,000 miles on it. It’s a part of my life.”

Jim lining up for the a Cycling Time Trial at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana. Image courtesy Paul DeGoey.

With help and support from his brother Paul and coach Tracey Drews, Jim finally won his national championship when he captured gold in the Men’s 75-79 10K Recumbent Time Trials at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana in Des Moines. He’s also working on a new goal: to write a book about his experiences.

“It’s titled ‘50 Years Between Victories,’ and it’s basically about how to resume an athlete’s lifestyle later in life,” he says with a hint of excitement.

Jim topping the podium at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana. Image courtesy Jim DeGoey.

“I’m getting my ACE certification as a health coach. I’m a former USA Cycling coach, but I’m not building training plans. The reality is that it is not about reliving the glory years; It’s about finding a new game plan. If you want to reignite your passion for activity, you have to look at it differently than you did in your 20s. You’ve got the opportunity now to use the wisdom of your more advanced age.”

Jim plans to make the free e-book available by mid-2026 and hopes it will help many people in the future. “As an advertising designer, my work may last for a month, and then it disappears,” he observes. “This is a lifelong legacy that I can share with my family, friends and acquaintances. That drives me more than just setting records or winning races.”

December 2025 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Glenn Govertsen, 81
Missoula, Montana

Glenn Govertsen has an alter ego. He’s made physics cool to thousands of students across the country as “Mr. G,” host of a high-energy science show. The same infectious curiosity that fuels his passion for science has led Glenn to find new ways to stay active throughout his life.

“The important thing is to not stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.” – Albert Einstein

Image courtesy Glenn Govertsen.

Glenn Govertsen, a retired math and physics teacher and lifelong runner from Missoula, Montana, displays this Einstein quote on his Facebook page and says it represents his approach to life. True to form, when we asked why he decided to qualify and participate in the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana, he replied, “Curiosity.”

He then adds, “I realized, as all of us older people do, that time is shortening, and we just don’t know how long we’ll have the ability to take part in something. It was a desire to get to Senior Games at the national level because I hadn’t done it before.”

The Connecticut native set track records in the 440 and 880 events while earning his physics degree at Middlebury College in Vermont, followed by grad school in Bozeman, Montana. There, he fell in love with the West and pursued a 31-year career in high school teaching in Missoula. Being a golfer in the summer and a skier in the winter, Glenn chuckled, “Once you ski in powder, you don’t go back to Vermont.”

Running has been his staple for exercise and competition, and Glenn had to adapt to find events available in a rural state. While there were annual masters track meets in Montana, he needed more opportunities. “I never thought I’d be a distance runner, but road races were what was available back in the ‘70s and ‘80s,” he explains. “Then, I ran a half-marathon and thought, geez, maybe I could run a full marathon. I ran my first marathon in Seattle at age 42.”

Glenn completed 31 marathons by age 65, including multiple races in Portland, Chicago and Boston, where he knew people to host him. “I was a teacher and didn’t have money to just go so it usually depended on where I had a place to stay.”

Curiosity led him to investigate the Montana Senior Olympics, where he has been competing and consistently medaling in track and golf since 2019. Then, at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana in Des Moines, Glenn earned a Bronze Medal in the Men’s 80-84 400-meter race for his efforts. “At this age, just running nonstop for any distance is a success,” he humbly quips.

The “Mr. G Science Show” Takes the Stage

Glenn has had the same curiosity and enthusiasm for teaching science as he’s had for his athletic pursuits. The passion to explain the importance of math and physics in his students’ lives inspired him to stage entertaining, understandable science demonstrations in class using everyday items to help his students “power their inner lightbulb.” No one was absent on the days he had a demonstration.

The passion continued after Glenn retired in 2004, so he assembled his most popular experiments, and the “Mr. G Science Show” was born. “After I retired, I was involved in a program in Montana helping unprepared teachers get some more science in the summer,” he recalls. “Then, I went to school assemblies and that evolved into the show.”

Image courtesy Glenn Govertsen.

He eventually found audiences around the country and beyond. “I was involved with physics teachers at the national level, and some professors at Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton had math camps in the summer, and I would go and do my demonstration for the kids.”

One professor invited Glenn to bring his show to her hometown in Warsaw, Poland. “I got to go to Poland five times,” he says with some wonder still in his voice. “Some of it was my own cost, but it was well worth it.” You can watch a highlight reel of one of his 2014 visits here.

A Body in Motion…

Image courtesy Glenn Govertsen.

Having an inquisitive mind has served him as an athlete. With limited coaching as a youth, Glenn had to read up and train himself. Through experience overcoming injuries and medical setbacks, he has made discoveries along the way.

“The most fascinating thing is that the body gets better as you use it,” he says. “When I started doing 50 to 60 miles a week, I found that I got better instead of just breaking down. That was a very important scientific thing to me.”

He also keeps a chart listing results and times for all his races, broken down by five-year intervals. “I see it as a science experiment. Of one. With no control group,” he says humorously.

While Mr. G has applied his mind to learning the mechanics of his sports, he doesn’t overthink it and takes a holistic view of the physical, mental and social benefits. “When we read about aging, we realize that those are pieces of a healthy life, especially to have social interactions,” he observes. “I’ve met some very interesting people, and we all have our own stories. I appreciate the camaraderie more than anything.”

November 2025 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Andrea Collier, 59
Orlando, Florida

Photo courtesy Andrea Collier.

Many athletes have to overcome feelings of anticipation and stress when they compete. The pressure to perform can be even more intense for elite athletes who chase medals and records after months and years of serious training and preparation.

Not rising star Andrea Collier, 59, a former Florida State University trackster who tells us returning to competitive running after nearly three decades actually relieves her stress. It must work, because there’s a #1 next to her name in every running event she has entered in the past three National Senior Games. She still holds the American record in the hotly contested Women’s 55-59 100-meter event she set in 2023.

Balancing Work, Family and Elite Track

The reason Andrea, who sports the nickname Drea C, feels so “chill” goes beyond the confidence built through practice and experience. She says it’s a relief from the challenges she faces balancing a demanding work life and family with her growing senior track career.

Since 2010, she has worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), and 2025 has proven to be her most challenging juggling act yet. “I’ve had some pretty tough assignments where I’ve had to work seven days a week with 12-hour days,” she explains. “For the first time, coming from a work assignment for almost two months nearly destroyed me physically and mentally. When I’m working those kind of hours, there’s no way in the world I can work out.”

The Florida native considered dropping out of the prestigious World Masters Indoor Championships, which were held earlier this year for the first time in the U.S. in Gainesville, Florida. However, she managed to compete with limited preparation. The midyear loss of a favorite uncle also weighed heavily on her heart, but she says her track family has rallied her through the season. “It was tough, but I had a lot of people praying for me and talking with me.” She is not a member of a track club and is grateful that some athletes have offered to help her train at times.

Andrea racing at the 2023 National Senior Games presented by Humana.

A Year of Surprises and Challenges

Andrea’s 2025 track season actually began unexpectedly while she was on a FEMA assignment to Alaska. “The USATF Alaska Association put on a couple of indoor meets and they were really, really nice to me. That got me back on the right track.” Her competition calendar has since been full with masters events, several state Senior Games and the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana in Des Moines.
Another unusual opportunity was linked to Andrea’s previous work. Since she was a probation officer for the Florida Corrections Department for more than a decade, Andrea discovered she was eligible to compete in the 2025 World Police & Fire Games, a multi-sport event for first-responder athletes held in Birmingham, Alabama, in June.

“That was amazing,” she recalls. “People came from all over the world. [For the relays] you can actually have a mixture of teammates from other countries- it’s not like just four members from USA, and that was unique. I’ve never experienced anything like that before, so that was nice.”

Andrea of some of her track family. Photo courtesy Andrea Collier.

More Than Medals

While she has enjoyed great success since returning to competitive track in 2015, she equally values the social benefits from having a track family and the simple fact that running is her happy place.

“Track is fun for me,” she says. “I have the competitive fire, and the camaraderie with the athletes is very important. Some of us have really become good friends, and we support each other outside of track. And I think it definitely can improve your health and decrease your stress levels.”

Andrea then adds with a light laugh, “I have been told I never lose. Trust me, I lose a lot more than you think. I’m a hurdler – that’s my favorite event – and there’s a young lady that has come up and entered that arena within the past few years. I have not beaten her yet and I’m okay with that, because iron sharpens iron and we have very competitive races.”

The banner event season concludes when she travels to Santiago, Chile, this month for the World Masters South American Championships, where she hopes to refine her hurdling skills in an endless drive for improvement.

“Honestly, I don’t really focus on the medals, I just try to do better than I did before,” she says. “I try to prepare myself to be ready to give it my best shot. And, you know, whatever happens, happens. I am more concerned with ‘Did I execute everything in the race the way I needed to?’ If I did, and I feel like I gave 100%, that’s all I can do.”

She pauses and adds, “I like challenging myself, and track is challenging- but I don’t back away from something like that.”

October 2025 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Davis Johnson, 75
Monson, Massachusetts

From the time he laid hands on his first Frisbee in 1965, Davis Johnson became obsessed with throwing it as far as he could. That would lead to getting his name into the Guinness Book of World Records as the first person to throw the disc more than 400 feet (412 to be exact) and made further history by competing in the first recognized disc golf tournament in 1975.

He’s still helping advance the sport 50 years later, both as an organizer and competitor. His wife, Joan Simmons, is the event coordinator for 25 sports for the annual Massachusetts Senior Games and encouraged Davis to be the tournament director for Disc Golf in 2016. He still serves in that capacity and even co-designed the local disc golf course in Wilbraham where they compete.

In a way, Davis wrote his own ticket to the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana, because the level of sport participation at the state level often determines when a sport can be offered nationally. Davis eagerly competed in the debut of Disc Golf in Des Moines, winning gold in a field of four in the 75-79 age group. “One guy, Jerry Brown, was a serious challenger and gave me a good run for the money,” he says. “I was only two strokes ahead after the first round and kind of sweating a little bit. I had a real advantage over him in a variety of shot choices but I have to give him tribute for keeping it very close.”

A Pioneer in the Sport

Davis marvels about his role in the formative age of competitive disc throwing and how the sport has grown internationally with both informal play and professional tournaments. He says that in the beginning, there were various games created for the flying disc, but Disc Golf really took off as the dominant sport when the disc basket pole was invented.

“The way we played before was to set up object courses in various places hitting rocks or trees. It was a cross between golf and miniature golf,” he recalls. “Ed Headrick was the Johnny Appleseed of the game, and he went all over the country pioneering disc golf courses. His basket was the real catalyst for getting the sport going because there was no longer an argument whether a disc has gone into a basket or not.”

Davis Johnson competing in the 1975 World Frisbee Championships. Image courtesy Davis Johnson.

He is proud to have participated in the 1975 World Frisbee Championships held in the Rose Bowl in Pasadena. His distance record for throwing a disc over 400 feet, considered by players as the “4-Minute Mile” of the sport, was not recognized by Guinness immediately. “I held both the indoor and the outdoor records since 1974,” he explains. “But it was not put in the book until 1978 because I did it with a non-Wham-O disc. In those days, they were the domineering company in the game, and if you didn’t throw a Frisbee (created by Wham-O), you didn’t get in. Now there are dozens of disc golf companies around the world making discs.”

His record was broken by fellow MIT student and friendly rival John Kirkland. “I held it for almost five years, and John broke it in a tournament in Texas,” he says. “However, he used a slightly more advanced disc. I still hold that record for classic discs, so technically it has not been broken. But as they say, records were made to be broken.” Davis recounts his early history in this article for The Flying Disc Museum: A Far-Out History of Throwing Far.

The Advantages of Disc Golf

Davis finds several reasons for the growth of Disc Golf. “For one thing, people are daunted by ‘ball golf’ as we call it because it’s difficult and can be frustrating. Disc golf is much easier for the layperson to pick up, and it’s also far less expensive,” he explains.

“The discs are reasonably priced – many courses now are pay-for-play, but you’re probably going to spend no more than $10 for a round. It’s informal, fun and really inclusive, and we are trying hard to get more women into the sport.”

Instead of clubs, he says most players use 15 or 20 discs to make shots. “There are specialty discs that will go one direction or another, and you have your putters, and your mid-range would be your irons, and then you have your drivers, which are less predictable but go a lot farther,” he says.

Davis Johnson preparing for a throw. Image courtesy Davis Johnson.

Davis, a published poet and songwriter who edited Victor Malafronte’s “The Complete Book of Frisbee” in 1998, is retired after a 30-year career teaching writing, speech and journalism at Springfield Technical Community College. He has also worked as a radio weathercaster, motivational speaker and author of a children’s book. But he has always found time to get out in nature and fling discs around, and he believes Disc Golf is here to stay in the National Senior Games.

“I got in so early I’m number 44 in the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA), and there are now over 200,000 members,” he notes. “Those people are aging just like me, and I think the senior competition will become a lot more challenging and fun.”

Davis summarizes that it is the people that he loves most about being in his sport. “If you had disc golf people running the world, we’d have a lot more egalitarian and peaceful world, because people treat each other well in this sport.”

September 2025 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Diane Stelpflug, 65
New Berlin, Wisconsin

Diane Stelpflug at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana.

Watching Diane Stelpflug enter the Iowa Events Center for Pickleball at the National Senior Games with a pronounced limp, one might easily assume she was a spectator toting gear for a friend. But a remarkable transformation takes place when Diane steps onto the court, willing her body to follow commands and compensate for her leg weakness to play and compete.

An accident eight years ago altered Diane’s life. “It was on Christmas Eve. I fell on a big puddle of water on a really hard porcelain floor. Think Wile E. Coyote, that’s the kind of fall it was,” she jokes. “I rolled my foot and twisted my knee further than any human being should, and then landed hard on my hip.”

Three years of treatment and therapy followed, and her ACL was removed during one procedure. “So my nerves don’t communicate to my glutes or my hamstring and my left leg,” the 65-year-old retired restaurant operations executive explains. “It was a several-year process just trying to get it diagnosed, and unfortunately, they figured out what’s wrong but never found what to do to fix it.”

Diane ran some track in high school and kept up her fitness with activities like hiking, camping and running. She also joined her husband, Mark, in co-ed volleyball for several years. She even challenged herself to do a marathon at age 50 and achieved the goal in less than a year.

But now, the winged bird was at the critical point where she could give in to the injury and sit, or resolve herself to find ways to do as much as she could.

Diane (left) and her pickleball partner, Terry Stefaniak.

Being a self-described driven optimist, Diane kept her options open and accepted an invitation to try pickleball with a friend three years ago. She fell in love with the sport and took some lessons, finding she could manage doubles play on the court. In rapid time she improved her game and qualified to dink the ball with her partner, Terry Stefaniak, at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana. While the podium eluded them, Diane was thrilled to go on from Iowa to win silver and gold at the Wisconsin Masters Games last month.

Facing the Challenge with Positivity and Hard Work

It’s one thing to be able to recover enough to play a game. It’s another to play at a competitive level. Diane says while she’s not an elite athlete, she is highly motivated and worked hard to train her body. Her goal is to be rated 4.0 or higher and says some days she plays well enough for a high rating.

“I do about an hour of physical therapy every day with pickleball-like moves, sideways, backwards, squats. I really keep doing it because I hope the nerves could regenerate and I’m trying to keep my muscles strong,” she says. “My goal when I get on a pickleball court is that people don’t notice it, except maybe when I’m walking on or walking off. The people that really know me notice it when I’m going to get to a lob or on a really short shot if I’m on the back baseline.”

Diane’s smiles and interactions with others reveals she loves people and the social aspect of pickleball culture. She volunteers as a pickleball ambassador at her recreation center and at a local orthopedic facility in New Berlin, and was also recently asked to help promote the Wisconsin Masters Games.

A high point of Diane and Terry’s first National Senior Games was watching and meeting the older ladies, including 95-year-old Joyce Jones, recognized as the oldest competitive pickleball player in the world. “Those women were a blast. I mean, she knew the guy who invented pickleball!” she exclaims. “So we’re like, ‘Right, regardless of what happens between now and then we want to be playing pickleball even at 80, let alone 90.’”

Diane and Mark Stelpflug on the volleyball courts at the 2025 Games.

Diane also enjoyed watching her husband help his volleyball teams win gold in two age divisions in his third trip to Nationals. Just as Mark recruited her to play volleyball when they met, he joined Diane in mixed doubles play at the state level, and the couple hopes to qualify and play pickleball together when The Games go to Tulsa in 2027.

Will Diane’s nerves ever heal? While always hopeful, she is realistic and does not dwell on wishing for a full recovery. “That kind of hope actually makes things harder,” she says. “When I went to Mayo clinic for treatment I’d go full of hope. And then I come back like, ‘Okay, it didn’t work,’ and that was hard on my psyche. I’m very optimistic, but I’m not necessarily hopeful that it’ll be gone. So I just do things that strengthen the muscles and keep me moving forward.”

August 2025 Athlete of the Month

By Del Moon, NSGA Storyteller

Derrick Milligan, 60
Chicago, Illinois

Derrick Milligan (far right) and his teammates at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana Triathlon.

On a misty, muggy morning at the 2025 National Senior Games presented by Humana, lifelong athlete and Team Dream coach Derrick Milligan watched members of the three teams he brought to Des Moines for the Triathlon Relay compete. He speaks of always being in sports and explains what drives him at age 60.

“I now consider this activity as my ‘insurance policy’,” he says purposefully.

The North Carolina native started on a swim team at six and played in his first tennis tournament and refereed basketball game at nine. He was an all-state tennis player and an all-city point guard in high school. After failing to make his varsity tennis team at Miami University of Ohio in 1984, he saw a flyer for a triathlon that weekend. “To punish myself for not being in better physical condition for the tennis match that would have put me on the varsity, I decided to do my first triathlon untrained,” he recalls.

Derrick has completed more than 120 triathlons since then. During the years he was pursuing a busy marketing career, playing tennis and doing tris was how he relieved stress and kept in shape. In 1997 he changed course and began coaching others as part of a renewed dedication to fitness. It all came home after witnessing his family’s health history.

“My two grandmothers had five heart attacks, two strokes and a pacemaker between them,” he says softly. “My father died at 61 from his first heart attack. I was already working on his lifestyle and teaching him how to swim. He really was starting to address all the corporate stress that piled up over four decades of working. So, it really bothered me that he died that way on my watch.”

That is why Derrick believes he’s taken out an insurance policy to live a longer and better life. “My mother died this year of congenital heart failure, and her kidneys were probably at 30%. Even though she lived to be 84, the last 25 years have not been high quality because of her health,” he shares.

“That’s what drives me,” he adds. “I want to be very active with my grandchildren, and I don’t have any yet, so I’ve got to keep it together.”

Team Dream Becomes a Documentary – and Regular in Senior Games

In 1999, Derrick formed Team Dream in Chicago as an organization to train women of color in swimming, cycling and triathlon. In 2015, he coached African American swimmer Ann Smith to do Triathlon and Swimming at the National Senior Games in Minneapolis. Ann then decided to focus on the pool and competed in six Swimming events in 2017, with Derrick bringing along six other Team Dream athletes. More came in 2019 and 2022.

During this time, longtime friend and filmmaker Luchina Fisher took interest in his mission and the journey of Ann Smith and her friend and fellow swimmer Madeline Murphy-Rabb in their quest to win a national medal. The result was the award-winning 2022 documentary, “Team Dream.” Read our 2022 story for details. Derrick also won a bronze medal in Tennis doubles in that year.

This year, Derrick recruited three Triathlon Relay teams for The Games in Des Moines. “Most of our history has been all-female, but we started incorporating more male activities,” he says. “Our co-ed team won gold, our all-female team won gold, and then our all-men’s team won silver.” The men’s team revealed a dramatic story of one member’s comeback from a stroke as reported in the 2025 Games Daily News.

The Team Dream teams at the National Senior Games Triathlon Relay in 2025. Photo courtesy Derrick Milligan.

The athletes enjoyed their experience, despite the unfortunate development of poor water quality that required the swim leg to be canceled. By triathlon rules, the swim segment becomes a one-mile run, which disrupted many teams.

“The biggest letdown was the swim being canceled for my three swimmers, including myself,” he says. “But since I pull people from all over the country, they loved the camaraderie, going around town, the meals and seeing everyone.” Undaunted, Derrick says he plans to bring 10 triathlon teams to the 2027 Games in Tulsa. He’s grateful for how Team Dream has progressed and intersected with Senior Games, and he has been inspired by his swimmers to double down on his insurance policy.

“I already wanted to be at a certain level of efficiency in my 70s, but Ann introduced the concept of thriving at 100 years of age, which I hadn’t really thought of,” he says. “So, I’m 60 and never had a heart attack. My blood pressure is optimum. I don’t have high cholesterol. I don’t have diabetes. All are things that run rampant in both sides of my extended family, and I don’t have them because of the lifestyle choices.

“I’m very grateful to Ann and Madeline, he concludes. “They’ve raised the bar of my already high expectations.”