“Senior athlete, 96, sets busy Games schedule”

Senior athlete, 96, sets busy Games schedule

Posted: 04 Dec 2010 06:01 AM PST

Dressed in his tennis whites and sporting a pair of black, wraparound sunglasses to protect his eyes after a recent cataract surgery, James Kales pointed proudly to a wooden rack heavy with medals.

The ribbons - in various shades and combinations of red, white and blue - held gold, silver and bronze pendants for tennis, triple jump, javelin, bowling.

"I have at least 60," the 96-year-old Kales said.

"These ones are national, silver. I have some more inside."

Kales' Bonita Springs home is a trove of Senior Games medals the nonagenarian has amassed over the last decade.

He's hoping to add to his collection at the 19th Annual Florida Senior Games state championships which starts today at venues across Lee County.

More than 2,000 athletes ages 50 and older will be competing in 24 sports over the next nine days.

Kales has a busy schedule.

There's bowling on Sunday, and then tennis - singles and doubles - and then it's on to the track for javelin, discus, shot put, long jump and triple jump.

"I hold the triple jump record for both states, here and Michigan," said Kales, a Michigan native who was born in Greece, and who competes in the 95-99 age group.

His itinerary may seem packed, but for Kales it's just another week.

"I play tennis every day," he said. "I bowl at least once a week and I dance about three nights a week. That's my best sport. I love to dance, always."

Kales lost his lifelong dance partner and wife Margaret in 1999, just months after the couple built their dream retirement home on the banks of the Imperial River.

They were married for 55 years.

"I get a little emotional when I talk about her," James Kales said as he removed his sunglasses, his pale blue eyes misty with liquid. "This is her house. It's the only one I have."

To help cope with his grief Kales, a former restaurateur and nightclub owner, started playing tennis.

He has never taken a lesson, yet he routinely beats the 70 and 80-year-old "young guys" he plays with on the clay courts at Village Walk, and on the public courts by his home.

Kales competed in his first Senior Games in 2003.

A former pinsetter at his youth bowling alley, Kales got back into that sport when he turned 80.

Five years ago he bowled a 269, 10 pins lower than his personal record, which he set as a teenager.

The companionship Kales has found through sports has kept him young.

He still takes his boat out on the weekends.

And when he needs to go to a doctor's appointment, or to the Elks Lodge for a dance, you can bet he'll be driving.

"Oh sure, yeah," Kales said with a sly smile.

"Well, I'm too old to walk - you know?"

This entry passed through the Full-Text RSS service — if this is your content and you're reading it on someone else's site, please read our FAQ page at fivefilters.org/content-only/faq.php
Five Filters featured article: Beyond Hiroshima - The Non-Reporting of Falluja's Cancer Catastrophe.