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More senior women stay fit playing hoops
Phyllis Huxfore, 78, of Des Moines, Iowa, prepares to put the ball back into play during granny basketball practice in Des Moines, Iowa, Thursday, Jan. 11, 2007.
Playing basketball isn't ladylike. That's what Jewell Chapman's high school principal told her in 1961 when he banned the girls basketball program.
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"We were very frustrated," said Chapman, a forward for her high school team of Des Moines.
Nearly 50 years later, Chapman is back on the court. She's 62 and plays for the Hot Pink Grannies, joining about 10 other women on a team whose uniforms are black bloomers and hot pink socks. They play in the Iowa Granny Basketball League.
It's one of dozens of basketball leagues for women over 50 that have sprung up across the country. For some, it's an opportunity to exercise and socialize; for others, it's a once-denied chance to compete.
"You see more and more senior women's teams participating in state and national competitions," said Michael Rogers, an associate professor in sports studies at Wichita State University. "In the future it will be commonplace to have leagues like this."
Annual surveys by the National Sporting Goods Association indicate the number of women 55 and older who play basketball at least 50 times a year has grown from 16,000 in 1995 to nearly 131,000 a decade later.
The women on the Hot Pink Grannies are good-natured but competitive when game time comes.
"I think I'm tough," says Hot Pink Granny Colleen Pulliam, 69, flexing her biceps at opponents in a game against the Strutters, known for their brilliant yellow socks.
Granny Basketball Leagues and similar groups are scattered through much of the country, including California, Connecticut, Louisiana, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Washington, D.C.
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