Older, but still in the game

Steve Cooperstein's teammates at the thrice-weekly noon basketball game can usually count on one or two buckets from his outside jump shot.

This, mind you, at the none-too-shabby Sporting Club at the Bellevue - one of the premier places to play ball in the country - where you may find yourself playing with former Sixers coach Maurice Cheeks. Even Julius Erving was a longtime member.

Cooperstein, though, is a Sporting Club legend in his own right. He passes by the treadmills and elliptical machines and goes right for the basketball court - at 5'8" and 55 years.

"I get a kick out of the fact that it's a game that is made up of just a few basic principles so that five complete strangers can take the court together and immediately engage in teamwork," said Cooperstein, a lawyer from Maple Glen.

In the 1960s, there were precious few, if any, 55-year-old basketball players. A good, long walk did the trick for Cooperstein's dad and his contemporaries, and 20 years later, middle-agers upped the ante by engaging in running and swimming.

But these days, you'll find more Steve Coopersteins - more men and women sacrificing their bodies to play basketball, hockey, rugby or soccer, fearing not for bruises and breaks. While exercise is an obvious benefit, they do it just as much for camaraderie and a bridge back to youth.

"It connects us to good, healthy childhood memories," said Joel Fish, director of the Center for Sports Psychology, who, at 52, plays in fast-pitch softball leagues. "When I go from first to third in softball, I can really relate to the feelings I had when I was 12 - the wind blowing in my face, the adrenaline rush, the idea of winning with my team.

"What other activity can you do that is exactly the same as it was for you as a child?" he asked.

It was this generation that formed health habits during the 1960s and '70s - a time when the country experienced its first surge of consciousness about nutrition and conditioning for young athletes.

"What we are seeing now is the sprouting of those roots," said Fish. And with it, more adult sports leagues.

Robin Abu Khattar actually got started in soccer because of a broken leg she suffered falling down the stairs at age 36.

"I thought, 'Is life over now?' " said Abu Khattar. But at the bottom of a youth soccer newsletter, Abu Khattar saw an ad asking for women soccer players - "no experience necessary." She started playing, and now, at 49, plays at least one women's game a week and often goes to play a lunchtime indoor game, in King of Prussia, where she is often the only woman.

"They let up a little bit because I am small, but not really," she said of the men she plays with. "But the women can be nuts.

"All right, so sometimes it takes a toll on my body, but for my spirit, it is wonderful. I often feel like I was an Indian warrior in another life," she said.

John Branigan, 57, plays against hotshots in their 20s at the Sporting Club, but even they know it's wise to pass to "JB" for his two-handed jump shot - a thing of beauty.

Branigan's son, Chris, was the quarterback for Bishop Eustace High School in Pennsauken this year and will be going to the University of Delaware on a baseball scholarship, but Branigan disdains parent-in-the-stands status. In addition to his basketball games, he's a catcher for the Hot Stovers of South Jersey, over-35 division.

"Every so often, I feel embarrassed by the way I play, but not enough to quit for good," said Branigan, who is a Center City lawyer living in Voorhees. "When I go to the batting cage or practice just shooting, my wife says, 'What's the point?' Inside, she smiles because she knows I will never stop competing or playing the game, because that is the point, not to stop."

Toril Hinchman, a teacher from Bryn Mawr, grew up in Norway where, she said, kids ski before they walk. They also play soccer just after that, and she was unwilling as she got older to quit.

Now 41, despite having three daughters, ages 8, 12 and 13, she plays just about whenever she can, indoors in the winter and outdoors in the other three seasons.

Her inspiration is being a better coach to her daughters' soccer teams, where she often cringes hearing parents on the sidelines criticizing their kids.

"If they tried to play the game themselves, I think they would have a better appreciation of the game and have more positive, encouraging remarks to make."

Yet those middle-aged parents on the sidelines are free of sports injuries.

Richard Romash, a Haddonfield-based sports physical therapist, said older people who play sports may not realize that their physical tolerance for quick stops and starts, pivoting and twisting, and jarring contact is probably much diminshed from their teenage years.

"I know it is something people enjoy - I played college basketball," said Romash, "But I don't know that I really recommend it, although, if you really, really enjoy it. . . ."

Rich Shapiro really, really enjoys it. At 56, he plays often at the Sporting Club with Cooperstein and Branigan, but his real passion is weekend ice-hockey games at the Wissahickon Skating Club. His son, Jonathan, now in college, played there in youth leagues, and it motivated Shapiro to learn.

"I can't possibly be an old man if I'm still running full-court hoops and getting rubbed out on the boards three or four times a week, can I?" asked Shapiro, a Center City lawyer. "It is great cocktail conversation when listening to folks talk about their golf game, Pilates class or nature walk, and I tell them about taking a slapshot off my ankle."

Sometimes those slapshots come from Gerry Quill, who has been in that weekend Wissahickon hockey game since Shapiro was in high school. The former president of Remington Rand is now 70 and still playing defense, just as he was when he was a 30-year-old tough guy.

Of course these days, he doesn't mess around. He passes to the forwards as quickly as possible.

"The best thing, though, is just being out there," said Quill. "I am on the board of Children's Hospital and there is good conversation there, but there is nothing like the banter in the hockey locker room."

That is still what attracts Joe Watson, who played on the Flyers' Stanley Cup teams in the 1970s. He's 65 and plays about a dozen games a year with the Flyers alumni team, which he says has lost but three times in 30 years.

"I bang a little bit, but not like in the old days," he said. "The reason we do it is so we can get to the locker room and lie about how good we were. The camaraderie of sports, that's what we older guys can't leave. As long as we have that, a few bruises on the ice are well worth it."