Barbara Daughety, a Kinston woman, faced an obstacle that could have hindered her chances to enter the 2013 National Senior Games when she suffered a broken hip on Jan. 28.
In 2003, Daughety, 76, was fully introduced to senior basketball teams. She was invited to attend a practice the senior women’s basketball team was holding out of Greenville. After attending their practice, memories were brought back as Daughety recalled playing the sport in her prime as a then-Contentnea High School center.
“I called one of these girls that I played back with years ago,” Daughety said. “I said ‘Guess what? We’re going back to playing basketball.’ ”
Six months ago, Daughety was running drills with one of her teammates. She ran too fast and tripped over her feet during the workout. After a teammate helped her up, Daughety only wanted to see her daughter. The first words she said her daughter told her when she saw her mother were, “Mom, you are going to the hospital.”
With a hip injury in her 70s, Daughety’s main concern was if she’d be able to dribble a ball again.
And she was.
“The fact that you can be 76 and come back to play in a meaningful game is a great way to speak her testimony,” Kinston High School girls’ basketball coach Hubert Quinerly said.
A hip injury affects the player physically and mentally, he said. While playing sports, especially basketball, athletes rely on their lower body for a majority of the game — from jumping, bending and squatting.
Quinerly, who knows the ins and outs of basketball, said mentally, a player can lose their confidence feeling they might injure themselves once more.
“In this day in age, it’s a lot quicker to come back, but you still have to be smart and physically strong”, he said.
Daughety said she recovered from the injury quicker than her doctor believed. During the process, her only therapy was walking.
She attended nationals in Cleveland, Ohio this year, which ran from July 19 through Thursday. She played with a different team because of her injury.
However, she is looking forward to playing with her original team in the 2015 National Senior Games, which will be held in Minneapolis, Minn.
Dymond Mumford can be reached at DymondMumford@yahoo.com.Follow her on Twitter @dymondalexis.