Shared from the 4/21/2019 American Press eEdition

Outdoors

Community gets behind Senior Games

Picture

It’s been a few weeks since the completion of the annual Senior Games, which McNeese State has hosted the past dozen or so years, and there is still talk among those who participated.

The “Games” is a sports program that is designed to promote active involvement in life through physical fitness and wellness education for people age 50 years and older.

“Probably over 500,” is the way Dr. Michael Soileau, head of the university’s Health and Human Performance Department, summed up the number of participants in the recent two week program.

The HHPD is charged with conducting the program for the seniors with Staci Henry as the director and students of the department’s “recreation leadership” classes — many of them members of the school’s athletic teams — running the events.

Most of the events — which number more than 20 excluding the multi-event track and field competition — are held on campus, either at the rec complex or on the McNeese track.

There’s just about every indoor and outdoor event possible including shuffleboard, table tennis, horseshoes, archery, bowling, golf, various accuracy and distance throws and swimming.

Soileau said bean bag baseball, which was only added to the program recently, has proven to be a big hit.

“We had over 200 (18 teams with 11 to a team) to just play in that event and it ran one day from 8 in the morning to 5 in the afternoon,” he said.

The local Games is conducted as the southwest regional of the state. Winners of various events can qualify for the state games in New Orleans and also qualify for the national senior games, which will take place the middle of June in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

The regional Senior Games is something that McNeese plans to have on its campus for some time.

“Several years ago there was talk of moving it but we wouldn’t let it go. It’s good for the community, it’s good for McNeese and it’s good for our students,” Soileau said.

One of the participants in the track and field events this year was Larry Cinquemano (yes, that Larry who is considered to be one of the top bream fishermen in the area).

At 90 years old, he was one of the oldest in the Games and he was competing for the 30th year.

“I began when I was 60,” he said, “and I look forward to it and prepare for it every year. The turnout (in track) was not as good as it has been, but that’s all right. I enjoy competing against some of those younger than me.”

In track and field participants are grouped according to age, in five-year sets.

Cinquemano runs the races and said he used to compete in all seven offered — 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 1,500 and 5,000 — but now only in the five shorter ones.

He has also competed in state meets in the past and in one national, that in 1996 when it was at the LSU track and he claimed a couple of top-six finishes.

Cinquemano also noted that since the Senior Games are over for the year, he’ll now be spending more time on the water than on the track.

See this article in the e-Edition Here