SportsCenter this morning is basically a big Favre-a-thon, with wall-to-wall coverage of Brett Favre's tearful retirement press conference yesterday. I watched the footage of him choking up, and said "Yeah, he does look pretty old. Probably time to hang it up."
Then I realized: He's less than two years older than I am.
I guess I've pretty comprehensively missed my chance to be a pro athlete, haven't I?
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I've given myself permission to not feel old until I am older than the oldest NBA player. Thank you, Dikembe!
There's always golf!
(Spoken as someone 9 months older than Favre.)
Hey, take up tennis - that's right, TENNIS. There are leagues, sponsored by the United States Tennis Association, by age group. Senior leagues are for those 60 or older, Super Senior leagues for 70's, and now, Super Duper Seniors for 80's. The Senior Olympics has, I believe, a division for 90's (not too many entries, but we have one guy here who plays in it). And in tournaments we also have ability groupings within the age groups, so a 60 year old beginner will not be playing against 45 year old kids, but also will not be playing against 60 year old ex college players. Tennis is a lifetime sport. Check it out.
A well-known runner once said that he thought long-distance runners could improve up to around 50 (surely he meant amateurs rather than professionals). It was reassuring at the time, but apparently my knees didn't hear the news.
This will make feel better: John Thompson's son is coaching Patrick Ewing's son...and it's not in junior high ball. It doesn't seem that long ago that the elder Ewing was a shot-blocking freshman playing against another medicore guy in the NCAA finals.
well you can always play basketball with Barack Obama!
One thing that amazed me as I grew older was how quick the transition was from pro athletes all being older than you to them all (or mostly all) being younger than you.
Most athletic careers are short, which is why the anomaly stands out. Whenever I see Morten Andersen in an NFL game, I have to go online and check the team roster before I accept that he is the same guy I once saw play in college almost 30 years ago.
(1) As a boy, I could not understand why adults referred to professional baseball players as "boys."
(2) See below for a paraphrase of a funeral oration I gave about a fortnight ago for a fanatical cyclist, who complained that he was having trouble with double centuries (cycling 200 miles in a day) although the centuries he bicycled in China, Russia, Europe, and wherever (on tours he led) were still effortless fun. "How long have double centuries been hard for you?" asked the head of a local cycling club.
"Since I was 72," he said.
With the approval of his family and friends, I spoke for a couple of minutes at the Athenaeum (Caltech's Faculty Club) about how Herb Keller was not my #1 teacher of numerical methods (that being the late John "Jack" Todd), but was coequal with Richard Feynman in encouraging my "chutzpah."
It doesn't matter what your background or label or training is, he'd say, if the problem is interesting, go for it!
I could not keep up with him on a bicycle -- he was a fearless international cyclist, with many accidents. When I also rode a motorcycle, he acted as if I'd betrayed the cause. When my motorcycle accident broke both my wrists he said, "I told you so! That would never have happened on a bicycle!"
My life would be mundane and boring without his guidance. His encouragement was not just a pat on the back -- it was more like being shot out of a cannon.
Thank you, Herb.
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Memorial Service for Herbert B. Keller
A memorial service for Herb Keller, Caltech professor of applied mathematics, emeritus, will be held from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. on Sunday, February 24, in the Athenaeum. Born in Paterson, New Jersey, Keller earned his PhD in mathematics from New York University in 1954. After working as a research scientist and associate professor at the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU, he came to Caltech in 1965 as a visiting professor. He became a full professor two years later. At Caltech, Keller served as an executive officer for Applied Mathematics and director of the Center for Research on Parallel Computation at Caltech. He retired in 2000 but remained an active researcher, attending seminars, workshops, and conferences related to his fields of interest. He is also credited with pioneering
developments in bifurcation theory. Keller's methods are the basis for computer software that is widely used to derive numerical solutions to nonlinear equations.
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