HERB BENHAM: It's nothing but net for 80-year-old basketball player
| Monday, Dec 14 2009 05:17 PM
Last Updated Monday, Dec 14 2009 05:19 PM
Fall asleep. Don't guard him. How could he possibly score, rebound or defend anything that wasn't a chair or a box of fruit?
Dave Anderson is 80. He's not that much younger than basketball itself. When Anderson was born, they were still nailing peach baskets on the sides of barns and taking people for hay rides.
"You have to see this guy play basketball," said Ken Gross, a friend who lives in Shafter. "He's 80 and still competes."
Ken, Ken, Ken. I'm all for throwing old people a bone. Making them feel like they are a part of this. But between us, don't we have an understanding there is a difference between locking up with someone on the hardwoods and being carried like a sack of wheat?
This is an early morning game. A game made possible because somebody has a key to the gym. A key that is more precious than Oxy's new gas field.
The players range from 15 to 80. No one loves the game more than they do. Only love gets you out of bed for a 6 a.m. game in a cold gym. Only love and the opportunity to rain doom and destruction on the other team.
This game takes place Wednesdays and Fridays at the Richland Junior High School gym in Shafter. It's been going for 30 years. Maybe 35. Not even the players can be sure.
Players include farmers, preachers, judges, college students, piano tuners and P.E. teachers. Basketball luminaries like John Maynard, Gary Ingle, Burt Johnson, Ismael Corrales, Devin Shaffer, Ken Gross, Grey Gaffner, Larry, Keith and Brent Starrh and Dave and Mike Anderson.
Anderson was born in 1929. You know the year. The stock market crashed and Popeye made his debut.
I watched the game recently. On the way out, I got lost. I almost froze. That game is tough even on spectators.
My first reaction: No way Anderson is 80. He must be from the Dominican Republic school of birth certificates.
Assume Anderson is 80. Unwrinkled, silver-haired and bull-like. Looking good is one thing. Playing basketball is another. I don't know if you know this Dave, and yes, I'm speaking to you, but basketball requires agility, flexibility, quickness and the ability to jump.
The game starts. The gym is not warm enough to smell bad yet. The players are 14 points away from breaking a sweat and the way shots are clanking off the rim, it might be tomorrow.
Early morning games have their share of ugly. Just when you don't think it can get any worse, it does. Even though there is a basket, a ball and the squeak of sneakers, the first 10 minutes of an early morning game does not bring to mind March Madness.
Then, magically, somebody makes a basket. Then somebody else. The third somebody else is Anderson.
Congratulations, you made one. A 14-foot set shot. However, one basket doth not a basketball player make.
Anderson grabs a rebound. No, Anderson rips the rebound away from John Maynard. Come to find out, Anderson is known for his sharp elbows. Get close and you may experience the "Channel of Death."
One rebound becomes two and two becomes three. He whistles a chest pass like Bill Walton. By mid- game, Anderson has 10 points. He's just short of a triple double.
"Do you need help guarding him?" said farmer Larry Starrh.
Who is this guy? What's his secret? Did Anderson come from a planet where 80 is the new 24?
I bored in. Somebody had to. If he was from these parts, we had to bottle what Anderson was drinking and get it on the shelves before Christmas.
"I've been in Shafter since 1936," Anderson said. "I've been married to Bebe for 58 years."
It can't be a long-term marriage. Usually, you don't look that good after one of those. Although the Andersons have had a good marriage and his wife Bebe looks like she could go 48 minutes too.
Maybe Anderson doesn't drink, but apparently he does -- gin and tonics and Mai Tais. No gambling, but he's in a once-a-month poker game where players can lose up to $100 if they're not careful. Health kick? Not unless it includes chicken and fish.
"I do yard work," Anderson said modestly. "A few years ago, I cut and split 15 cords of wood at our cabin near Camp Nelson." That's not chopped liver.
Anderson played tennis most of his life, backpacked across the Sierras twice and still gets on his roof to fix leaks.
Nothing unusual on the career front. Anderson was in the Army, farmed, owned Anderson's Auto Parts store for 22 years with his brother Elmer, had the Shafter Sports Center for 15 years and helped raise four children.
What can you say? Anderson's parents lived to 87. Maybe it has something to do with dumb genetic luck and living a normal life.
Don't count out love of the game. The fun, competition and camaraderie ("We've never had an argument on the court in 30 years.") will get you rolling early and into a drafty gym.
A place where nobody looks good at first. Not until the legs wake up and the blood starts pumping recklessly hard against the artery walls.
Then slow becomes fast. Rough becomes smooth. And old becomes blissfully young.
