Elderly Athletes Prove Age Is Just A Number

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LYNN NEARY, host:

I'm Lynn Neary sitting in for Michel Martin. This is Tell Me More from NPR News. In a moment, we'll hear what songs keep a fitness legend moving and sweating. And Tell Me More's former intern celebrates her mixed heritage.

But first, just about every week, we dip into the pages of the Washington Post Magazine for interesting stories about the way we live. Today, swimming. Gold medal performances by Cullen Jones and Michael Phelps have inspired us at this year's Olympics Games. But another group of winning athletes is making a splash at a Washington swim club. To qualify for this team, you've got to be at least 50 years of age.

I'm joined now by Lonnae O'Neal Parker who wrote about these athletes, and John Tatum, a member of the Water Wizards, the official 50 and over D.C. swim club who is the focus of the article. Welcome to the program.

Mr. JOHN TATUM (Member, Water Wizards): Good to have me. Thank you.

Ms. LONNAE O'NEAL PARKER (Staff Writer, Washington Post Magazine): Thanks so much.

NEARY: So Lonnae, let me ask you first, what exactly led you to the story in the first place?

Ms. O'NEAL PARKER: Well, I wanted to do a story on older athletes. The Olympics were coming up, my editor had just seen a front page article that we did in the Post that talked about how research had shown - which had long shown the benefits of exercise in aging, but really that exercise could actually halt the progression of aging at a cellular level. And he was very intrigued by the implications of this research for aging athletes. And so that was my charge and I went out and within a very few clicks, found the brothers Tatum.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Ms. O'NEAL PARKER: They're just well known in Washington, a native Washingtonian.

NEARY: Well, John Tatum is sitting here in the studio with me, and he is an amazingly young-looking 89-year-old, I have to say.

Mr. TATUM: Well, thank you.

(Soundbite of laughter)

NEARY: I was - as soon as I saw him walking down the hallway, I thought, this is the swimmer because you - I knew it had be him. Now, you've been swimming since you were a kid, I know. But when did you begin swimming seriously as an adult?

Mr. TATUM: Well, after retirement. They had a program over at Fort Lincoln for older people. They called it water aerobics. Then, I was interested in swimming, anyway. And I've set in with the program and I got to say, I can do this. And then they - I heard about this competition that they had for elder citizens so I started training with the group up there.

NEARY: Now how often do you swim? Do you swim everyday?

Mr. TATUM: No. Three times a week is what we're called to do. Monday, Wednesday and Friday. But - and it's just about two hours, from 10 to 12.

NEARY: How many laps do you do?

Mr. TATUM: I have a problem with the lap thing because I can do 20, 30 laps in all, but the rest of my teammates can do 40, 50, 100.

NEARY: Well, you're really lacking behind, I have to say.

(Soundbite of laughter)

Mr. TATUM: But I'm principally a sprint swimmer.

NEARY: Oh, really.

Mr. TATUM: Yes. I swim to 50s and 100s. I don't go to the 200 or the 500s, you know, like some of them. I like to power swim and you know, the hard, knockdown, drag-you-down type swimming.

NEARY: Yes. Lonnae, maybe you could describe for me, what is the scene like, the swimming scene for older people in D.C. that you reported on?

Ms. O'NEAL PARKER: Well, it's amazingly vibrant. It's just - you go to the pool, there's, you know, moms and toddlers and an aerobics class in other parts of the pool. But where the Water Wizards practice at a community center in Washington, boy, folks are swimming laps up and down and it's all different ages and abilities. They've got a guy who had hip surgery a few months ago and he's in the water. There's, you know, an older guy, a priest, and you wave at him and he's like, just keep swimming, you know, and he's slow and steady. And then, of course, the Tatum brothers, who are really the heart and soul of the Water Wizards team. At 89, John is the oldest member on the team.

NEARY: And his bother.

Ms. O'NEAL PARKER: And Brad is 87.

NEARY: Right. And I was going to ask you about that, Mr. Tatum, because I gather there's a little rivalry between you and your younger brother.

Mr. TATUM: Well, it has been, you know. He's been a medal winner in the last year or so. But there was a time when we first start this swimming, I was the medal winner and I did all the laps and did all the winning. But Brad did a fabulous job at the last nationals that we had in Louisville, Kentucky. And he set some records for his age bracket.

NEARY: Tell me a little bit more about the nationals, about this competition. So people come from all over the country?

Mr. TATUM: People come from all over the country and every city - I think it's around 1,200 swimmers, I think. But in the thousands of people in various athletic activities, like track people and basketball people and all of them, but swimming is the biggest one.

NEARY: Now, your brother is 87. You're 89. How many swimmers are there in that age group?

Mr. TATUM: Well, maybe between 17, 20 in that age. They have two people, 100, still getting in the water.

NEARY: Really?

Mr. TATUM: Yeah.

NEARY: Lonnae, let me ask you about what led you to the story. In the first place, you were saying it was sort of an interest in some research that has been done about how exercise can help people with aging. What is known about how athletics helps the aging process?

Ms. O'NEAL PARKER: Well, there had been a landmark study in 1990 - the Fiatarone study, with a researcher going into a nursing home and doing strength training with nursing home residents who were - the average age, I think, was 90. And at the end of this study they found that they had improved their strength by something like 174 percent. And as one researcher explained to me, if they were able to improve that much, then that means they didn't have to lose to the ability in the first place. And a lot what we think of as aging is just more of muscle atrophy and disuse kind of thing.

So people do lose the ability to climb stairs, but a lot of that has to do with one day deciding that they can no longer do those things, that they are too old. So they stopped doing it and then they actually do lose the ability to do some of these things. So that was pioneering research.

And then, since then, has expanded on that body of research just to show that by all these indices, if you exercise and just keep active and keep your muscles moving, then you never actually have to waste away and suffer from this gradual fragility. Now there are some things that'll happen naturally with aging, but you can really hold on to a lot of your mobility and your mental clarity with moderate levels of exercise.

NEARY: Mr. Tatum, do you have a sense of how swimming has helped you sort of deal with your own problems with aging or...

Mr. TATUM: One of the things I'd like to let you know - that I still have the ability, you know. In fact, if you can still swim at 89, it gives you the sense that you're still doing all right. You don't feel your age, you know, at that level.

NEARY: And do you think it also helps you with other physical activities, just everyday physical activities?

Mr. TATUM: Yeah, with everyday physical activities. You know, as an old person, you don't do some of the things. I don't get up on the roof anymore, you know, like that. Or maybe I might not lift a sack of cement like I used, you know. I got to have people to...

NEARY: But you can still walk easily. That's not a problem for you.

Mr. TATUM: Oh, yes, yes, even though I've had a hip operation, too. Hip replacement, that is. But I can still walk. I don't think I have a limp.

NEARY: Now I wanted to ask you about Cullen Jones who won a gold medal in the men's relay in Beijing. And he's the second African-American to win a gold medal in swimming.

Mr. TATUM: Yes.

NEARY: And so was that inspiring for you to see this young African-American...

Mr. TATUM: Oh, yes, indeed. You know, to see how he was going to do in this high-class competition. You know, this is the top of the line. So he performed well, just up to the stand with everybody else. I don't know how long he's been swimming or where he had his training, most likely in college. But he must have come right along with it. But there are a lot of kids out there now that are five and six that are swimming, and I think that they're going to grow up and be in the upper echelons of swimming.

NEARY: Well, I know Cullen Jones is trying to raise awareness about the high rate of drowning among young African-Americans because they don't know how to swim. Trying to urge parents to...

Mr. TATUM: Yeah, I've read about that.

NEARY: Yeah.

Mr. TATUM: We have a person in our group, too. A coach that has a young team and he has some kid that can really pump it out, I'll tell you. So they're coming along, (unintelligible) swimmers and they will be in the national forefront to - just like everybody else.

NEARY: Another interesting thing about these Olympics is that there are a number of athletes - couple of athletes who are a little old by athletic standards, as well - 41-year-old Dara Torres and 33-year-old John Leesac(ph)...

Mr. TATUM: Correct.

NEARY: Competing at an incredibly high level. So what do you think slows the person down? Do you think it's the body or the mind?

Mr. TATUM: Well, I think it's the interruption of other things in your life. You know, you can't keep to the program that you set up for yourself at early age. But I don't know what the key element is to make you slow down. You know, not - in my own case, that my ability is less than it was when I was 32, you know. But you try to do what you can and I look at the records that they make now. The times that these guys do, it's incredible that they swim the hundred yards in the times I swim the 50, you know. And where I lost it, I don't know.

(Soundbite of laughter)

NEARY: Now I know in the article, you mentioned that you're going to move into a new age group. You're going to move into the 90 and over age group, and then you won't have to swim against your brother.

Mr. TATUM: That's right, yeah.

(Soundbite of laughter)

I'll lose that competitive edge. And then I think in this age group I'm going to do nationally - since we're in California, we might have 10, but I doubt if we'll have that many.

NEARY: How do you expect to do in the next competition?

Mr. TATUM: I expect to win the 50 and 100-yard freestyle. That's my bet.

NEARY: You sound pretty sure.

Mr. TATUM: Yeah, that's my bet.

(Soundbite of laughter)

NEARY: And what stroke are you going to swim in the nationals?

Mr. TATUM: I am - most likely the freestyle.

NEARY: All right. Well, good luck to you. John Tatum is a member of the Water Wizards swim team and the focus of an article in this Sunday's Washington Post Magazine. He joined us in our Washington studio. And Lonnae O'Neal Parker is a staff writer for the Washington Post. She joined us from our New York bureau.

If you want to read more of her article on the amazing Mr. Tatum and his brother, there's a link on our Web site, npr.org. Well, great talking to you both.

Mr. TATUM: Oh, it's been my pleasure. Glad you could have me.

Ms. O'NEAL PARKER: Thanks so much.

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