Think about some sports you might consider demanding, intimidating, dangerous or just plain crazy. Now consider a few Greenville athletes who keep on doing them: an Ironman competitor, a record-holding swimmer, a cyclist and a rugby player. Wouldn’t you ask why?
“After you beat your head against the guys, you raise a glass and talk about how good you are,” Ralph Little says with a laugh. “There’s a lot of camaraderie and social things, I’ve got friends from all around the world that I played rugby with.”
The 1981 Wofford College graduate has been playing the rough-and-tumble game for 40 years, along the way breaking his nose and thumbs and separating his shoulders several times. Now 61, he belongs to the Gentlemen Ruggers of Greenville, whose 100 members are part of the Greenville Griffins.
“I found a sport I can stay active with and it’s motivated me to try to stay in shape over the years,” says Little, who owns The Printer in his native Anderson. “It’s a physically challenging sport and a lot of people like to have that challenge and the social aspects.”
Getting GROG-y with Greenville rugby
The Greenville Griffins Rugby Club, a Division II men’s team, was established in 1969. The Gentlemen Ruggers of Greenville, or GROG, includes “retired” players who, according to the website, “gather infrequently to relive their youth and play an ‘old boys’ match.
To learn more about the Griffins and the women’s rugby club, the Grizzlies, visit the teams’ Facebook page. Contact the club at greenvillerugbytxt@gmail.com
Greenville Splash
Carolyn Moore says the same thing. In April, some 30 swimmers from the Greenville Splash team dove into her birthday with a “Big 6-0 Workout in Honor of Carolyn Moore” at the Greenville Aquatic Complex. That’s where she swims two hours a day, five days a week.
“A lot of people think of it as an individual sport,” she says. “I think people really enjoy the camaraderie. We even see that with our Masters group — people keep coming back because they like swimming with people. People like to exercise with people, right?”
Moore, who works at global software company Infor Services, began swimming competitively about 10 years ago. Now she holds dozens, if not hundreds, of records, according to the U.S. Masters. On its website, the national organization for swimmers ages 18 and up shows her with more than 140 Top Ten achievements from 300-plus meets.
Carolyn Moore’s blue-ribbon swims
Here are a few of Carolyn Moore’s first-place finishes
First-place wins in 2020 and 2019
Age: 58
Meet: 46th Annual Sunbelt Meet, Feb. 2020
28 teams, 232 swimmers
Event: 50-yard butterfly
Time: 32:55
Age: 57
Meet: 2019 SC SCY State Championship, Feb. 2019
13 teams. 167 swimmers
Event: 50-yard freestyle
Time: 29.38
Age: 57
44th Annual Sunbelt Meet, Jan. 2019
37 teams, 267 swimmers
Event: 50-yard breaststroke
Time: 37.78
Source: U.S. Masters Swimming
‘Wired to try crazy things’
Then you have Rose Wilson, who threw herself into one most challenging athletic pursuits imaginable when she was 50. Now 67, she completed her eighth Ironman in September. (The grueling triathlons cover 140.6 miles with a 2.4-mile swim, 112 miles on the bike and your standard 26.2-mile marathon.)
Since 2010, she has competed twice in the Ironman Hawaii World Championships. On her first trip to Kailua-Kona, she placed third in the 55-59 age group, clocking in at just over 13 hours and 28 minutes.
To be among the 2,000-some participants in the race billed as one of the world’s most difficult single-day sporting events, you have to qualify. She still does.“I think that I’ve always been kind of a person that’s wired to try crazy things,” says Wilson, who works once a week as a hospice nurse after retiring a year and a half ago from Interim HealthCare. “There is a flat-out nuts to it, let me tell you.”
She competes because, as she puts it, she wants to use her natural gifts — while also training as many as 30 hours a week. And she owns rFactor Coaching.
After having competed in Denmark, Florida, Lake Tahoe and Arizona, among other places, she plans to keep at it, aiming to participate in an Ironman at least every five years or so, she says—not a boast, just her thing.
“I mean, yeah, it’s great to accomplish these things and it’s great to do things beyond what you knew you were capable of, but I believe what’s more important is our relationship to life,” she says. “What impresses me more than the world champions and the Olympians and all of those is really the older athlete.”
Rose Goes Hawaiian
Here’s how Rose Wilson performed at her two Ironman Hawaii competitions. (Times in hours:minutes:seconds)
2015
Age group: Women 60-64
Swim: 1:11:08
Bike: 6:27:39
Run: 5:36:02
Total time: 13:28:23
2010
3rd place in Women’s 55-59 age group
Swim: 1:04:55
Bike: 5:49:02
Run: 4:34:49
Total time: 11:38:22
Sources: West Hawaii Today, Triathlon
Cruising Speed
You could say John L. Thompson qualifies as an older athlete.
For his 88th birthday in late October, he was hoping to cycle 80 miles, but he banged up his shin during a 70-miler in September. At the time, he was riding with a couple of friends, ages 70 and 87, averaging 12 mph and stopping for lunch along the way.
Laurens County’s terrain ain’t easy. Does he ride an e-bike to help him along? He chuckles at the idea. That takes away from the challenge, he says. And what about all those hills? He chuckles at that, too: “I like to hammer hills.”
When he was 80, he did 80 pushups, 80 chin-ups and an 80-mile ride. One day recently, he was in a park “knockin’ out some chin-ups” when three 20-somethings approached him.
Thompson, who retired after decades in the finance business, recalls one youngster who asked him his secret.
“There’s no secret,” he told him. “You just keep doin’ it.”
Greenville Spinners: Formed in 1979, the group now boasts more than 600 members of all ages and experience levels. Rides are constant and everywhere. Find them at greenvillespinners.org or on Facebook.
