2027 Event Set for April 23--
“Over the hill means that you’re just picking up speed on the way down.”
Those were the remarks for the 2025 Western Illinois Senior Games Opening Ceremonies April 25 by Senior Games Coordinator Tammi Bories. In Spring 1982, a new game came to town courtesy of Western Illinois University Physical Education Professor George Hermann, who shattered the myth that “senior citizens” sit and rock their life away. During the weekend of April 24-25, over 70 athletes converged on the WIU-Macomb campus for an Olympics-inspired weekend for adults over 50.
The Senior Games will celebrate its 45th year next spring, with the date set for April 23-24. This year’s 44th Annual Senior Games kicked off with 18-hole and 9-hole golf competitions April 24, at WIU’s Harry Mussatto Golf Course, swimming, pickleball and corn hole and bowling. An opening ceremony started events April 25, followed by track and field events, free-throw shooting, table tennis, pickleball and disc golf. The 2025 event about 30 percent more participants over last year’s games.
“These games are a testament to the fact that passion, competition, and community only get better with age,” Bories said. “The athletes’ dedication to health, fitness, and camaraderie prove age is just a number, and we can thrive at any stage of life.”
According to Bories, the Senior Games’ overall goals are to recognize continued preparation, performance, and desire to lead a healthy lifestyle; bring individuals with similar goals and interests together to expand friendship networks, and showcase talents before an audience of fellow competitors, friends and student volunteers and to gain an appreciation for a commitment to lifelong physical activity and fitness.
The games were founded in Fall 1980 by the Men’s Physical Education Department Chair George Hermann, who passed away at the age of 98 on Jan. 14, 2018. The first regional games were held in Spring 1981 on WIU’s campus. Hermann also served as the state coordinator for the Illinois Regional Senior Olympics for 23 years, and set, and held, two records in the Illinois State Senior Olympics for many years.
Ninety-eight-years-young Ralph Whiteman of Monmouth has been taking part in the event for 44 years, since its inception. But his relationship with athletics goes back much, much further.
“While the usual athletic attributes are the four ‘s’s’, speed, size, strength, and skill, I got by with the two ‘p’s,’ persistence and participation. It has been over 90 years since I got my first medal in the WPA youth program during the depression! Since then, I have participated in nearly 100 Senior Olympic events including placing in six nationals at such exotic places as Stanford and Orlando,” Whiteman told The Community News Brief. “This followed a persistence that included high school, military and college competition in such things as quarterback and tennis doubles. The obvious benefits included personal health and national friendships.”
“I have passed on over 200 medals to young students and hospitalized friends of mine for some event they were experiencing,” he added. “Now as I have moved to a senior residence, I hope that we can resist the temptation to withdraw from living activities and continue to retain a positive attitude. Thank you for your interest and publicity for we seniors, as well as for your encouragement for us to remain active and significant.”
Herschel Surratt, 90, of Chapin, IL has also been a part of the games on and off since he was in his 50s (he was a truck driver so his schedule varied), but for him 44 also has another special meaning: it’s the number of years he has been cancer-free. And it was the Senior Games that gave him a kick-start in getting – and staying – fit.
“I was about 80 pounds overweight, and I used to come to the games, but I was too heavy to really do any good. My wife and I got a quadracycle that we would ride together and I decided to lose weight so I could do better in the games,” he explained.
Surratt was the first nonagenarian to take part in – and establish a record for – the 1500-meter walk. He captured his first record in the 80-84 group with an 11 min. 44 sec. walk, but he did take a little time off again after that after his longtime friend and games partner Herschel Carriger passed away.
“I just didn’t feel like going without him, but then I decided to get back to it. Herschel liked to throw the shot and he liked to beat me, so this year I did the shot in his honor,” Surratt said with a laugh. “My biggest thing was to try not to drop it on my foot. I did it, but I’m a long way from a record on the shot.”
Surratt also shared that Whiteman called him a “snot-nosed kid,” and then to add insult to injury, the 98-years-young (Whiteman’s words) man threw the shotput further than the 90-years-young man.
“This year my bucket list was to set a record for the 1500-meter racewalk, and I did it in 16 minutes,” he added. “There was a younger guy in his 80s who was shadowing me and he made me walk faster. He finally passed me, and I thought ‘no,’ but I still ended up first in my age group and set a record.”
“I’m planning on coming back next year,” Surratt said. “I do feel better when I walk, but when I do those walks at the games, about the second lap I think ‘why am I doing this?’ But after, I always feel better. I want to keep enjoying life, and I want to stay in shape so I can do that and so I can stay in my home as long as I can.”
Whiteman set records in the hammer throw, discus, javelin and shotput, as well as the standing long jump. Bill DeYoung, 90, of Macomb, took part in the bowling competition.
“Our event, in our book, was a success,” noted Bories and volunteer co-coordinator and WIU retiree (and alumnus) Jim Miner, who also took first in his age group and set a record in 9-hole golf.. “It was one of our largest in recent years, and we aspire to get back to 100+ participants. We think we’ll get there next year.”
