The Ageless and Undefeated Champs of Tulsa's Wii Bowling League
Game day starts on the bus outside University Village — team jerseys on, an American flag stitched in white pins and a red ball. A half-mile away the Burgundy Place Strikers are hoping to end the Okies' 8–0 streak. In this Tulsa senior league, the hardwood lanes and real gutters have given way to the digital alleys of Nintendo Wii bowling, and the Okies are the team to beat. “Dandy” Don Alcorn, 73, wasn't worried about the upset:
“We're going to go in there and smoke 'em.”
It wasn't always like this. When they first joined the city league more than a decade ago, the Okies didn't win a single match. So they studied the better teams, dug dusty Wii consoles out of their kids' garages, and ran an in-house league that played for 100 Grand candy bars. Some seasons the roster swells to 40 players, all competing for just eight spots on the weekly lineup.
But the trophies are only part of it. For Charlene “the Grasshopper” Giles, 75, the game is about something the years can't touch:
“There are some things I do where I feel ageless. It's like I could just as well be 13 standing up there. It's fun to have those things.”
It keeps them moving, laughing, and together through the aches and the grief of getting older. Pat Winkle — “Nana Pat,” 87 — put it plainly:
“This is the way older people survive.”
A few of them, Alcorn included, are former real-life bowlers who had to unlearn everything to master the digital lanes. His advice on landing a strike:
“That won't work. You've got to go up and out to get the strike.”