{"id":38587,"date":"2025-01-22T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2025-01-22T13:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=38587"},"modified":"2025-01-22T18:30:49","modified_gmt":"2025-01-22T18:30:49","slug":"the-geezer-game-a-nearly-50-year-old-pickup-basketball-game-reveals-its-secrets-to-longevity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/the-geezer-game-a-nearly-50-year-old-pickup-basketball-game-reveals-its-secrets-to-longevity\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The geezer game\u2019 \u2013 a nearly 50-year-old pickup basketball game \u2013 reveals its secrets to longevity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Richie Zweigenhaft<\/a>, Guilford College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Donald Trump\u2019s polarizing political rise in the past decade<\/a> has driven many groups<\/a> \u2013 and some families<\/a> \u2013 apart.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But a long-running pickup basketball game that I play in, made up of people with various political leanings, including Trump supporters, remains intact. I explored the group\u2019s dynamics in my 2020 memoir<\/a>. In March 2025, we will celebrate its 50th anniversary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As a former psychology professor<\/a> who has written about the impact of participation<\/a> in team sports, I think one of the secrets to our longevity is simple: We don\u2019t talk politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evolution of the game<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Our semiweekly pickup game has seen several transformations. It started in 1975 as a faculty-student game at Guilford College<\/a>, a small Quaker school in Greensboro, North Carolina. And we played in an old gym, known as the Crackerbox<\/a>, once the home court of former NBA players Bob Kauffman<\/a>, M.L. Carr<\/a> and World B. Free<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Over the next 35 years, the game moved to a newer gym, went from half court to full court, and back to half court. Students and faculty moved on, while others joined the game, including many people from the Greensboro community.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As we aged, our game came to be known as \u201cthe geezer game.\u201d These days, the average age of players is 64, with an age range from 32 to 79.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 1975, besides an 18-month stretch when we didn\u2019t meet due to COVID-19 restrictions<\/a>, the game took place three times a week before COVID-19 and has taken place twice a week since pandemic restrictions were lifted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone plays<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I believe we\u2019ve lasted this long for several reasons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

From 1975 until about 2013, the game was co-ed, though usually with only one woman, a former colleague in the psychology department. With a Ph.D. from Yale, she was 6 feet tall, athletic and competitive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

More importantly, she brought a civilizing influence onto the court. It discouraged the guys from letting their macho tendencies take over. Because of her presence, and the occasional presence of other women, I think we were all less likely to behave abominably.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This phenomenon is well documented. As the scholar Gerard J. Degroot has shown, women\u2019s social skills have a calming effect on groups of men. He told The New York Times the following regarding men in the military<\/a>: \u201cWhen female soldiers are present, the situation is closer to real life, and as a result men tend to behave. Any conflict where you have an all-male army, it\u2019s like a holiday from reality. If you inject women into that situation, they do have a civilizing effect.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another secret to our longevity is bound to be the fact that everyone plays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many other pickup games keep winning groups of teams on the court and losers sit on the sidelines. But when we have extra people, we rotate them in every 10 points. If we have 14 players, we break into two games, one 4-on-4 and one 3-on-3. Because we don\u2019t have to win to keep playing, this reduces the likelihood and intensity of disputes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The author Thomas Beller has touched on this in his book \u201cLost in the Game: A Book About Basketball<\/a>.\u201d In it he writes: \u201cThe thing about these street games is that if you win, you play again. If you lose, you watch. Considering the time and effort involved in getting to the playground in the first place, there was a lot at stake in winning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here\u2019s another way we reduce conflict: Whenever we do have a dispute \u2014 was that a foul or a charge? \u2014 we call a jump ball and rotate possession. No need for long arguments that are never resolved.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Several
The author, with the ball, plays pickup with several other geezers. Craig Chappelow, CC BY-SA<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We have not completely eliminated conflicts \u2014 we\u2019ve had some skirmishes \u2014 but they are very rare. We have had our share of injuries, but very few have been caused by overly aggressive play.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A few months before we took our 18-month hiatus due to COVID-19, I wrote the book \u201cGeezerball: North Carolina Basketball at its Eldest<\/a>\u201d based on what sociologists call a \u201cparticipant observation\u201d study of the game. Some people, especially my female colleague, served as important role models, I wrote in the book. And some rules that we implemented, like those that determined when new players entered the game and how we dealt with disputes, turned out to be important.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Politics<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The game has survived the past decade because we don\u2019t talk politics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whereas in other settings, and perhaps especially on college campuses, it might reduce divisions to share conflicting political viewpoints with others<\/a>, we are there to play ball, not educate one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the fall of 2016, there was some talk about the presidential campaign<\/a>. One geezer, a die-hard Republican, admitted he didn\u2019t like Trump. But, as he put it, \u201cI could live with him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another Republican player proudly proclaimed that he planned to spend Election Day driving Trump supporters to the polls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, Trump won, but many players, probably most, did not reveal their political views.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of COVID-19, we did not play during the 2020 election.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This past fall, unlike in 2016, there was virtually no talk about the election. But as someone who sees Trump as an authoritarian threat to democracy, to be honest, I don\u2019t want to know if the guys I play with voted for him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Avoiding politics, and specifically Trump, has allowed the game to continue without the animosity it might engender.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the political climate has had its effects on the group off the court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Before 2016, we had periodic geezer gatherings, sometimes with our spouses. We ate pizza, drank beer, gave out joke awards and celebrated birthdays. We enjoyed each other\u2019s company. Though some smaller groups have continued to meet for lunch or to drink beer since, we are now less likely to gather socially.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears, then, that the larger communal spirit has been diminished by the polarized political world we now live in.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the game goes on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Richie Zweigenhaft<\/a>, Professor of Psychology, Emeritus, Guilford College<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Richie Zweigenhaft, Guilford College Donald Trump\u2019s polarizing political rise in the past decade has driven many groups \u2013 and some families \u2013 apart. But a long-running pickup basketball game that I play in, made up of people with various political leanings, including Trump supporters, remains intact. I explored the group\u2019s dynamics in my 2020 memoir. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":56,"featured_media":38588,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8025,42,827,10,36,4,38],"tags":[7559,479,885,891,886,860,4716,228,15957,15956],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38587"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/56"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38589,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38587\/revisions\/38589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}