Aging Disgracefully, One Athletic Endeavor at a Time

By Marcia Plante

Editor’s Note: Marcia Plante is like many of our members: so modest that you’ll never hear about their remarkable athletic achievements unless someone clues you in. (That's her self-deprecating title at the top of this piece.) Marcia agreed to share the enthusiasm for athletics that guided her growing-up years and blossomed into a career… in a sport that might surprise you.
Leah Rewolinski
The Villages TLC Word Nerd
 
Never a dull moment
My mom was a competitive field hockey player and encouraged my brothers and I to be active. While I liked skiing, skating, and gymnastics, my favorite was always track.
 
Whenever I was bored, I would go out and run around our city block (600m?), ride my bike, or exercise by doing situps and pushups. One year, for my birthday, I asked for a stopwatch, jump rope, and set of dumbbells. Due to my nonstop energy level, my parents enrolled me in a YWCA program. We played recreational gym games, gymnastics, swimming, trampoline, and basketball.
 
Every Saturday we would huddle in front of the black & white TV to watch ABC’s Wide World of Sports. We enjoyed seeing the monkeys in the coconut throw and the lizards in the crocodile crawl. If the Olympics were on, we were allowed to stay up late and view all events. I'm sure I must have seen Mo [Lewington] run in Mexico City.
 
Early intro to track
The City of Troy (NY) ran an eight-week summer track program for two years. I was 11-12 at the time. We met twice a week and competed for points in three events per night: sprint, field event, and distance race. With the most points in my age group, I advanced to the county championships. I won the 100 and the long jump, which resulted in an invitation to a junior track camp in Arizona, but my parents felt I was too young to attend.
 
Physical education was my favorite class in middle school. This was pre-Title IX so we had no organized sports teams, but our intramural program was fantastic: hockey, soccer, football, basketball, softball, and volleyball. The lifetime sports offered were archery, badminton, bowling, and tennis, but no track. I learned to play every sport but could play nothing really well.
 
“I was a big fish in a little pond”
In high school there were still no leagues, so I petitioned 100 schools to allow girls to participate in exhibition races at the boys conference invitational track meet. My efforts were rewarded as we competed in the 60-yard hurdles and 4 x 220-yard relay. At graduation I was presented the “most athletic” award – a big fish in a little pond (make that a puddle).
 
Next I attended Russell Sage College in Troy, a private school for girls with a concentration on physical education, physical therapy, and nursing. There was no track team, but I did compete on the tennis team. I also learned how to play speedball, lacrosse, golf, and synchronized swimming – oh, how I hate bathing caps!
 
An official bench warmer
During this time I tore my medial meniscus, so I became an official bench warmer. The injury did have a positive outcome, though, as it inspired me to write my honors project on “Athletic Injuries to the Meniscus.” I graduated Phi Kappa Phi, with highest honors in PE. I then received my master’s degree and completed most of my doctoral work in health education. With nowhere to run for five years, I became a jogger.
 
Teaching fitness creatively
When I began teaching, my strengths were probably creativity, organization, and innovation. I rewrote the syllabus to include a comprehensive track unit, which was adopted by the New York State Department of Education. I started a school pentathlon, mixed relay day, and marathon madness unit. In my later years, I converted the program to more of a fitness and lifetime sports endeavor. I introduced BMI, Project Adventure activities, sportfolios, sportography reports – and I was forced to teach reading and writing activities in the gym.
 
My first two years I coached soccer, basketball, and softball, all the while gaining support to start a girls tennis, bowling, and track team. They were my focus for the next 10 years.
 
During my track tenure, I had the pleasure of coaching Diana Richburg from grade 7-12. She won the state and national high school championships in the 800 and 1500, won the 800 in the Penn Relays, made the finals of the 1500 in the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, and took the world junior indoor 1000m record away from Mary Decker. She could run under 2:00 in the 800m.
 
Tennis, anyone?
While in high school, I played exhibition matches on the boys tennis team. At college I qualified for their Eastern Collegiate Championships but knew better than to show up. After a 12-year hiatus due to coaching duties, I joined the U.S. Tennis Association and began playing sanctioned adult team tennis.
 
After a few years, my organizational skills took over and I became a tournament director for USTA junior and adult tournaments. This inadvertently led to my becoming a USTA official: line, chair, referee, and chief umpire. I umpired at the U.S. Open many times and served as chief umpire for the Virginia Slims Championships held in New York City.
 
I later worked with Nitty Singh, who was named one of tennis’ top ten most influential women and an inductee into the Eastern Tennis Hall of Fame. She was the tournament director of the OTB Open, the only free professional tournament in the world and the site of Andre Agassi’s first pro tournament. I trained the youngest umpires in the world. I was elected to the Eastern Tennis Umpires Association’s board of directors and won two Jack Stahr Awards for umpiring. I was also a tennis umpire at the 1984 U.S. Olympic Trials.
 
Just as I was retiring from officiating, Nitty purchased a World Team Tennis franchise, and I spent the next 10 years working for Billie Jean King as a site coordinator. Martina Navratilova was our marquee player.
 
Running as a senior
I was running six days a week and participating in road races like the the Freihofer’s Run for Women [one of the largest all-female 5Ks in the U.S.], turkey trots, and 5K-15Ks, but no marathons. I even did a mini-triathlon here at The Villages.
 
When I was healthy, I would do all track and field events at the Senior Games (not well, of course). I was, and am, very focused on fitness, thus my license plate FTNS: fitness or fatness, your choice. I still go to the gym, and half of my garage is cluttered with fitness equipment.
 
As for senior tennis, I have competed in many state and national championships, both USTA and Senior Games. I have won states many times but only trophied at nationals four times. I still co-captain many teams in The Villages.
 
Slowing down with injuries
Little by little, my injuries have forced me to retire from various sports. Overall, I have lost about six years of competition, but I’ve managed to avoid surgery. My most recent issues are a full thickness tear of the supraspinatus (one of the rotator cuffs), bone on bone in the ankle, water in the tibia, and a bone spur and damage to the hip.
 
Before my ankle and hip injury, my goal would have been “I want to be like Tiny Cazel, still active after all these years,” but I guess I’ll have to settle for being able to jog again. I’ll have a new set of embarrassing pr’s but I’ll be happy just to be out there. I have purchased a lot of low-impact fitness equipment to improve my mobility. If all efforts fail, I can always brush my ragdolls, play my organ, read books (I’m way behind), go to the beach, drink lattes with my friends, and cheer for my teammates.
 
Track has always been and always will be my favorite sport. Tennis simply offered me more opportunities.