Slowhopes is a sucker for late bloomers, but 73-year-old Ken Mink is ridiculous. He made the Roane State (Tennessee) junior college basketball team this fall as a 73 year old! He played in the 1950’s, for Lee, Kentucky Junior College but got kicked off the team and never played again, for another 50 years. He started out in college ball with President Ike, and may finish up with President Obama!
Fox Sports ran an item about him in late October:
Ken Mink may be the first guy who can qualify for a senior discount during his senior season.
Ken Mink is living his college hoops dream at the age of 73.
Mink, 73, is a 6-foot, 190-pound newcomer to the Roane State (Tenn.) junior college basketball team about 35 miles west of Knoxville.
He’s likely the oldest person to ever play college hoops. To put Mink in perspective, Utah State’s Gary Wilkinson will be among the oldest Division I players this season; he just turned 26.
Mink played for Lees (Ky.) Junior College until 1956 when he was dismissed following a prank he still denies.
Mink, an avid outdoorsman, said he realized he could still hoop it up when he was shooting baskets in his driveway last fall.
“I had been knocking down shot after shot, so when I came in the house I told my wife, ‘I’ve still got it,’ ” Mink told the Knoxville News Sentinel. “She said, ‘You’ve got what?’ I said, ‘I can still play.’ ”
Mink wrote to some coaches seeking the chance to play, and Roane’s Randy Nesbit gave him a shot. Mink spent the summer getting into shape and playing with a senior team from the area in three state tournaments.
Mink says he was a good high school player in the ’50s and had several scholarship offers, but went to Lees because it offered a full ride. He says he averaged about 12 points a game until his dismissal.
He can still shoot (watch this video from the Knoxville News Sentinel), moves pretty well for a septuagenarian and has bonded with his younger teammates.
Mink is unlikely to play for more than five or six minutes a game once Roane State opens its season Nov. 3.
“There’s a lot of complicated offensive and defensive schemes that I have to learn, but the other players have been helping me every step of the way,” Mink said.
Today, the New York Times weighs in with a story of its own.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/10/sports/ncaabasketball/10player.html?em
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