Granny Basketball Leadership in Oklahoma City
From Courtside to Community: Lori Rupert’s Legacy of Leadership in Granny Basketball
story and photo by Darl DeVault, contributing editor
Lori Juntila Rupert is a leader on and off the court, playing for the Oklahoma All-Stars in the Granny Basketball® League. Billed as a gentle game for women of a certain age, the league empowers lady players 50 and over to reignite their passion for basketball and team camaraderie.
Rupert is leading in scoring and modeling character-driven leadership for the Oklahoma All-Stars.
Rupert and her husband Tim, the All-Stars coach, live in Del City and devote countless hours to organizing and recruiting for the league. They recently recruited players by working a booth at the 2024 Second Half Expo at the Oklahoma City National Cowboy & Western Heritage Museum.
Rupert started playing Granny Basketball® in 2018 for long-time Midwest City and Del City girl’s basketball Coach Kay Talley. Talley founded the Oklahoma Twisters, the first Granny team in Oklahoma City.
Later, the Ruperts branched off to form the All-Stars in 2022.
With practices and organizing charity events surrounding their league games, the couple is heavily involved in the local team’s success.
Recruiting is serious business for the couple and all league members trying to involve other players, team leaders, coaches, referees, scorekeepers, coordinators, announcers, volunteers, and sponsors.
This type of senior basketball is played without the phrase ‘ball hog’ since half the court is devoted to scoring.
This is further emphasized when a regular court is taped off with new lines using blue painter’s tape. They create three courts, a mid-court that players must stay in while passing the ball from the defensive end to the offensive players. Players can only dribble twice with each possession before shooting or passing.
“There is no running and jumping-that is a turnover,” Rupert said. “If someone falls, it is called ‘Granny Down,’ and that player has to leave the game temporarily. The average age of our team is about 60, and our oldest player is 80.”
As team captain and playing guard, Rupert takes a pass, sets her shot without jumping, and usually adds to the score and team morale. Smooth and well-practiced, she is an excellent model for the rest of the ladies.
In basketball terminology, she is a shooting guard, one of the two reliable scorers because she takes high-percentage close-in and mid-range shots when she sees the opportunity.
A certain amount of nostalgia fuels the fun. Some ladies are preserving their memories from days gone by. It affords a chance to relive simpler times when they could escape into a game they loved. It brings back the good times they had in their youth.
The players are serious about supporting their communities, as recent benefit games with two local firefighter teams raised money for Christmas gifts for children in their communities. The events featured silent auctions for baked goods and gift baskets.
Unlike some women who play Granny Basketball, because they didn’t have a good chance to play in their youth when women’s sports became widely accepted in schools, Rupert was afforded ample opportunity.
Rupert puts her faith in God first. When asked to list her priorities in life, she quickly cited God as the first choice.
Speaking with Rupert, it goes without saying that her firm belief in God motivated her to use her skillset from playing on Northern Michigan University’s women’s basketball team from 1977 to 1981. She was inducted into the Sports Hall of Fame in 2008.
She was selected to try out for the U.S. Olympic team, only to be ill during tryouts.
Now at age 65, she will soon retire as Director of Academic Programs for Southeastern Oklahoma State University at Tinker Air Force Base and Rose State College Outreach Campuses. There, she teaches classes, develops, plans, supervises and directs master’s degree and undergraduate course offerings. Her long and prestigious academic career spans earning three master’s degrees and two master’s certificates.
Her college sports experience shows as she helps build a wider emphasis on the Granny Basketball® League to be healthy and support her community.
She helps fellow Oklahomans at their practices, aiding in their early exposure to understanding the rules and catching on. This can take longer when women come out for the team who have never played basketball. With everyone welcomed, the players also lend a hand at coaching to quickly bring newbies up to speed.
The League began a competitive exercise program for women 50 and over in 2005 as an exhibition game in Iowa. There, Barb McPherson Trammell helped her father, a longtime Iowa high school girl’s basketball coach, with his memoir.
She was struck by his memory of the first girls’ game he saw in 1920. The players wore costumes, divided the court into thirds and played by restricted movement rules. Trammell formed a team to provide competitive exercise appropriate to the largest number of women, not just ladies who played high school or college basketball.
Now, more than 600 players on 46 teams in 10 states in the USA and a team in Toronto, Canada, play in the league. There are 14 teams in Iowa, 9 in Kansas, 8 in Texas, 4 in Oklahoma and 3 in Missouri, two in Minnesota, Wisconsin, and California, and one in Louisiana and Arizona. New teams continue to form every year.
Oklahoma last hosted the National Granny Basketball Tournament in Norman in 2018. Norman also hosted in 2014 and 2017.
Many of those 600 players are seasoned veterans. The league insists that the teams play safely according to the 1920s rules. The safety part has been evident since this year; 46 ladies have received 15-year pins for their continuous league play, while 117 have played safely for 10 years.
As a throwback to a less strenuous game, all the teams wear modest uniforms: simple white shirts and middy collars with numbers stitched on the back without team names. The uniform is completed with black bloomers that go just below the knee-the only flair of team affiliation is the choice of colorful knee socks.
Individual flairs of talent enlarge the competitive side when athletes hurry to pass or make a shot within the rules. This is all under the eyes of dedicated referees, who, on average, whistle a play stopped about every four minutes of a 32-minute game.
The games inspire ladies of all ages to stay active with the skills and competitive spirit to change perceptions of the capabilities of older adults and what it means to grow old. This illustrates the century-long striving for women’s equality in sports and the competitive and ambitious nature of female athletes of all ages.
Their playing basketball highlights the support and encouragement the women get from being part of a team. Women with varying personalities have become friends during their many years playing together. This friendship strengthens and motivates them in this example of community. They encourage other women to find fellowship in athletic teams with a shared passion. This support is helpful to a person’s well-being and mental health.
Anyone interested in seeing what Granny Basketball is all about and attending a practice after the first of the year may contact Lori at [email protected]. See more information at Wanna Play – Granny Basketball League. Granny Basketball League, Inc., is a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.
