Granny basketball is coming to Visalia.
An exhibition game between members of two teams from the Granny Basketball League, the Oakdale Broncos and the California Poppies of Sonora, will be played at the Anthony Community Center in Visalia at 11 a.m. on Sunday, April 19. Admission is free.
Now in its 20th year, the Granny Basketball League has more than 800 players on teams representing 57 cities in 11 states and one Canadian province. California has three teams, the two that are coming to Visalia and the Columbia Gold Diggers.
Created to provide safe basketball play for women over the age of 50 while supporting local charities, the Granny Basketball League was founded in Iowa in 2005 by Barb McPherson Trammell (now a resident of Columbia in Tuolumne County). The game follows the rules of 1920s women’s basketball, so there are a lot of differences between granny basketball and the style of basketball that most people are used to seeing.
“For one thing, we play on a regular court, but it’s divided into thirds,” Trammell said. “You have two forwards, two centers, and two guards on each team in each of the courts, and you have to stay in your third of the court.
“So, there’s no running and jumping and no physical contact, and you can only dribble twice,” she said. “You can hurry, but you can’t run. We try to avoid going too fast because we’re old and we forget that we don’t have the skills that we used to – balance and that kind of thing. If we allow people to run, they fall down and they get hurt.
“We can’t shoot jump shots, so you always have to keep one foot on the floor when you go in for layups or shots of any kind,” Trammel said. “Another difference is our three-point shots, our granny shots, between your legs and throwing it underhanded towards the basket. You can get three points anywhere on the court when the forwards have the ball. They can shoot from anywhere, close, far, doesn’t matter.”
Also, defensive players aren’t allowed to touch the ball when it is in someone’s possession.
“The ball is considered a part of the person, so there isn’t any smacking and bumping, and that kind of thing,” Trammell said. “We rely mostly on what we call finesse moves, which is getting position, finding an open spot, and doing the old pick and roll.”
League rules help make the game competitive for all players.
“There’s quite a difference between how a 50-year-old plays and an 80-year-old plays,” Trammel said. “The young ones have to learn to slow down because the old ones can’t speed up.”
No prior basketball experience is required. As a result, some have much more basketball experience than others. Some have never played before while others have played in college or professionally.
“The Oakdale team has had some professional players, so they are quite skilled,” Trammell said. “They move quite a bit better than my team does. There may be only one or two people on the Poppy team that have actually played before.
“We’re a real novice team, so we make a lot of mistakes, which is OK,” she said. “It’s kind of hilarious really, but we’ll get better.”
The Granny Basketball League also incorporates the culture of the 1920s in its uniforms.
“We wear bloomers and midi blouses and long stockings because you can’t show any flesh,” Trammell explained. “It’s a foul if you show any flesh.
“They thought at that time that too much exercise for women would hurt their reproductive organs, so that it’s part of a cultural thing that women were supposed to be more ladylike than they probably are today, so we try to appear ladylike and kind,” she said.
Since only three of the teams are in California, there are a limited number of league teams that each can easily play against.
“Our closest possible competitor is in Phoenix, the Desert Geckos, but that’s pretty far away, so we’ve been playing against anybody that’ll play against us,” Trammell said.
In recent years, league teams in California have played games against men.
“That’s always a riot because they’re used to running and jumping,” Trammell said, explaining how the men’s teams are “equalized.”
“Well, we have several options,” she said. “We usually start out by taping their arms down above their elbow, so they have to play with just half an arm, which is really, really funny, but the men always keep breaking the tape.
“We sometimes have them put on oven mitts and really dark sunglasses because usually the men are young men like the fire department, so equalization means that they can’t see as well,” she said. “A lot of ladies have arthritis and hip replacements and knee replacements and all kinds of things and just can’t move that well, so we try to make it for the men similar to how the women have to play. Lately we’ve been making them then carry a pillow with them and if they drop their pillow, then that’s a turnover and we get the ball.”
Trammell and the other players are hoping that the exhibition game results in enough local interest to lead to the formation of a Granny Basketball League team in Visalia or other Tulare County city.
“I hope that a lot of ladies will see us play and say to themselves, ‘I could do that,’ because most people, you tell them about the game and they just kind of go, ‘Oh, that sounds interesting,’” Trammell said. “But they just can’t conceive of what a game looks like, being played in three courts and no running and no jumping and that kind of thing.
“They’re usually inspired after they see us play, because it’s a way easier game than what they’re used to seeing in real life,” she said.
This article originally appeared on Visalia Times-Delta: Granny Basketball League playing 1920s-style game in Visalia
Reporting by Steve Pastis, Visalia Times-Delta / Visalia Times-Delta
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
