News : Granny basketball brings color, history and exercise to Iowa seniors

Model T forward Kay Kubik makes a shot Saturday vs. Williamsburg in the CPU Middle School gym.

Kay's granddaughter, Amanda Kubik, takes a photo of her in a Granny League game.

Model T coach Diana Lamphier gives instructions to two players Saturday.

Kay Kubik makes a 'granny' free throw shot.

Each Granny League team uniform is identical, except for the socks.

From the knees up, Granny Basketball players dress alike; the socks are the only difference.

Players from the Center Pt., CR, Williamsburg and Lansing teams posed for a group photo Saturday.

Model T forward Kathy Sankey attempts a shot vs. the Williamsburg Elite.

Forward Kay Kubik prepares to pass the ball.

There are three positions in this 6-on-6 league; guard, center and forward.

Players scramble for the ball when Center Point played Williamsburg; the Williamsburg Elite won.

Williamsburg guards take on the Model T forwards.

The Center Point Model T team.

Players watch a Model T shot head toward the basket.

It is very unlikely that someone, a half century ago, said to Arlene Wear of Norway and her three sisters: You will be playing basketball together in the 21st Century, on some of the very same courts you are playing on now.

But they are.

And nobody probably told Kay Kubik, when she was wearing the green and white of the Rowley Rockets, that one day her granddaughter would watch her play basketball and take a photo of her playing the game she loves -- with a phone (yes, a phone!) that is smaller than a checkbook.

But she did.

Those are just two of the stories that are linking basketball-loving women to their game, their teams and their families.

Welcome to Granny Basketball.

Several Benton County area women play together on the Center Point Model T team, sponsored by the Junge Automotive Group. The Model Ts hosted several other teams in their first game of the 2011 season Saturday.

Their Model T name is appropriate because the women play the kind of basketball that young ladies were playing in high school while Ford was making Model T automobiles. (See a story about the rules of their game HERE.) Arlene Wear will celebrate her 84th birthday later this year. She was born in 1927, the year the last Model T rolled off the assembly line. But Arlene is not the oldest player on the Model T team; that honor belongs to her older sister.

"My father was a basketball coach," says Barb McPherson, who got the basketball rolling for the granny league in 2005. McPherson's father taught her how the game was played and how the players dressed in the 1920s. The Granny Basketball League follows those rules and dress code now.

McPherson helped organize a granny game for a community fund-raiser in her hometown of Lansing.

"The media got ahold of it, and it just grew," she said.

That was 2005. Now, 13 teams from Iowa compete with other teams from as far away as Louisiana. Next week, some of the teams will travel to Minnesota. State and even national championships are scheduled for later this year.

The ladies wear black bloomers and white blouses. The only difference in their uniform is their brightly-colored socks (members one team will also wear a colored mesh jersey over their blouses during games).

The Model Ts chose purple and black socks. The other players who competed on Saturday at the Center Point-Urbana Middle School gym wores a variety of different colors.The team from Williamsburs wore socks with blue and white polka dots. The Cedar Rapids Late Bloomers, orange and black. The Cedar Rapids Sizzlers donned bright green socks with tiger stripes. The Lansing Great Dames wore red and white striped footwear.

Before Urbana merged with Center Point, that building was the Urbana High School Several of the ladies who played on Saturday remembered traveling to that gym in Urbana. Even a player from Williamsburg's team walked in the gym, telling her teammates she had played there before.

One member of the Model Ts said she had not played there before.

"Oh yes, you did!" said a teammate, who added, "We are senior citizens; sometimes we forget."

For more information, visit the Iowa Granny Basketball Web Site.