(3 of 5)
As he gets older, Herring gets faster: at 53, he runs the 100 m in 12.2 sec. and the 200 m in 25.3 sec.--comparable to the best high school female sprinters today. One of his best moments, however, had nothing to do with individual triumph. It came during the '97 Games in Tucson, Ariz. He and his eight rivals in the 50-to-54 men's 100-m race were approaching the starting line, their thoughts turned inward. They were the stars, the racehorses. They looked up and saw that just ahead of them, the women 85 and older--the slowest contenders on the field--were starting their 100 m. "Spontaneously, we jumped up and down and cheered them on--'Go! Go!'" recalls Herring. "Then we fell into silence and blasted down the course. When we crossed the finish line, the ladies were there, cheering like crazy for us. It was really great." That's senior gamesmanship.
ALICE SANCHEZ "The Digger" buries opponents and careless teammates
For Alice Chambers Sanchez, 66, life rarely strays far from the volleyball court. There was the time 32 years ago when a big guy named Jess started horsing around on the court when she wanted to get serious about the game. "If you don't want to play volleyball," she told him, "get your ass off the court." He did, but he returned a few days later, intrigued by the focused lady with a low tolerance for nonsense and an inclination for direct expression. They chatted, they batted the ball, they fell in love--and they got married.
Alice has been standing up to boys--and girls--since she was 12. She played softball and football with the guys and was president of the girls' athletic association. She dreamed of being an Olympian, going to college and then teaching or coaching. The dream ended when she married for the first time at 18 and had four children in four years. By age 32, she was divorced and getting no help from her ex-husband. With the grit she showed on the sports field, she refused to accept welfare and took a job, working for 25 years at an aluminum plant, handling the mail and switchboard, and writing the company newspaper.
Through the toughest times, she stuck with sports and in 1963 began playing competitive volleyball. She has taken part in 36 U.S. national tournaments and, on the beaches and in the gyms of southern California, is known as a relentless opponent who can take on and outwit women much younger than she is. "I can read them," she says. "When they put up their hands to hit, I know just about where the ball is going to go." Sanchez remains fearless about pursuing shots that are about to hit the ground and does so without the benefit of protective kneepads, pluck that has earned her the nickname "the Digging Machine."
She is as tough on her five teammates as she is on her opponents. "I'm not tolerant of many mistakes," she says, "and I don't play for fun. I play to win." Over the years she has fired a dozen or so teammates, mostly for having outsize egos. The Pasadena Mavericks, a team on which she is both the oldest player and the captain, went undefeated in winning the Games championship in both '95 and '97.
SID DUCKMAN A hard-luck senior, knocked down by cancer, refuses to quit