Barbara Wintroub
For the last eleven years, Barbara has played competitive tournaments, taught and coached Pickleball. Barbara has written a fitness blog for the last six years in the USAPA newsletter and was the first to offer a fitness article in the new Pickleball Magazine.

She introduced Pickleball at Rancho La Puerta, Tecate, Mexico. The oldest spa resort saw the value of having Pickleball permanently installed at this destination resort.

Barbara is a certified USPTA tennis teaching professional, so the transition to teaching Pickleball was not difficult. She teaches all over the Coachella Valley.

Barbara is also an active aging expert degreed in Kinesiology; a First Tier Pilates instructor certified by the PMA; Medical Exercise Specialist certified by AAHFRP; faculty with ACE; UCLA extension Personal Training Dept.; Balanced Body University; Educational Director Retrofit School of Pilates and speaker with American Bone Health.

Here's my situation and dozens of my friends, all medal winners and the best age groupers in the country. Last year the USAPA put all of us in a younger division instead of combining ratings and keeping us in our own age group. They told one of us that she was too good and it wasn't fair to have her play her age at 77 so they put her and all the others down in age 5 to 10 years. All of us lost and went home feeling old and awful. We are now a year older and they did it to us again. Nationals put all of us down 5-10 years.

Seems as if the only way I can play in the 70s which is my age group is to turn 75. Everyone is fed up and no one wants to play this or any other tournament. Regional tournaments are qualifiers for Nationals but they put us in 60+ so either we don't qualify or if we win, we qualify for 60+ in nationals. How stupid is that. None of us would play a younger division.

No one is fighting for us and needless to say I'm making enemies by standing up for us. I hate the thought of being forced to quit but I'm getting tired and no one is walking in my shoes.

Alice Tym
Played all the tennis majors. Ranked #13 in world, Florida Gator
Intercollegiate Hall of Fame, U Florida Hall of Fame, USPTA Coach of the Year
Coached U of TN at Chattanooga women to two national titles
Coached Yale women to top 20 and Ivy Championship
Taught geology and geography for 40 years at UT Chattanooga

Won NSGA badminton singles and table tennis singles and doubles
Won pickleball titles including Huntsman and USAPA Nationals and SSIPA Worlds Founder and board member of SSIPA
IFP board member and originator of the Bainbridge Cup

Most importantly: 3 great kids and 7 great grandkids

The 2019 National Senior Games was a record breaking national championship event for twenty sports in Albuquerque, NM in June. It was a true national championship for seniors as players were required to qualify and all 50 states were represented.

Each state hosts its own senior games qualifying event and every two years a national championship is held. Next year is a qualifying year for the 2021 Nationals in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Team sports as well as individual sports are included in each state and national contest. Part of the fun is meeting other athletes, watching top athletes perform (some with Olympic history), and learning to appreciate different sports.

Albuquerque hosted 13,882 registered athletes competing in twenty sports over a two week period. In addition to all 50 states and the District of Columbia, players attended from Barbados, Bolivia, Canada, Mexico, Slovakia, Sweden, and Trinidad and Tobago. In badminton there were so many good, young Asian players. Table tennis had Chinese, Japanese, and Thai competitors on the medal stand. Pickleball had huge draws whick kept Tournament Director David Jordan and his crew on deck for long hours. There were 77 teams in the 65 Mixed Doubles draw alone! The quality of the competition in all of the sports was outstanding.

What does this tell us about the health of senior sports? The Tennessee Senior Olympics is a good example. Tennessee has nine districts and players are required to compete in a district championship in order to qualify to participate in the Tennessee Senior Games state championship in June. The average number of participants in the state games is 2,500. It is a time of great camaraderie and serious competition. I remember when Pat Summit provided UT basketball uniforms to the Women's 70s team who competed in the 2011 National Senior Games in Houston. They brought gold back to Rocky Top!

Here are some things the National Senior Games Association (NSGA) does right. First, they use the 5-year world standard age increments. This fits the World Master's Games and international competition. Unlike the USAPA in pickleball which forces players to play way down in age if they are good players, the NSGA allows players to compete in their age group to determine a true national champion. It is a level playing field.

Secondly, the NSGA offers a wide variety of team and individual sports. There is an attempt to be inclusive. Shuffleboard and archery are offered as well as volleyball. There is something for everyone.

Finally, the NSGA is open to trying new sports. This year power walking was an "open" sport in Albuquerque. Qualifying was not required and 471 participants showed up to compete. Now all states will have a qualifying event and power walking will be in Ft. Lauderdale in 2021! Cornhole will be an open sport (replacing horseshoes) in Ft. Lauderdale. The NSGA is dialed in to what players want and is willing to try new things.

Hats off to the hard workers at the NSGA's national headquarters in Clearwater, Florida and to all of the state games coordinators. I recently competed in Fairbanks, Alaska where Diann Darnall runs a wonderful international state games. Pickleball is alive and well in the Yukon Territories! The NSGA brings so many opportunities to seniors across the country and the numbers are showing that we appreciate their efforts.