RECREATION & LEISURE
By Randy B. Young
Correspondent
Corporate fitness expert, retired UNC Professor, founder of Chapel Hill’s SkipSations jump roping team, and avid advocate for senior health, Lee Schimmelfing, M.S., is playfully called “Hodag” by his longtime friends among the Trailheads, a local running group that champions Carolina North Forest trails and other local trail networks.
Tales of the “Hodag” and other “Fearsome Critters” were their own mythology, shared around logging camps in the late 1800’s in the Pacific Northwest and the Great Lakes region. According to folklore, a “Hodag” had the head of a frog, the grinning face of a giant elephant, huge claws, the back of a dinosaur, and a long tail with spears at the end.
Conversely, folktales of “Johnny Appleseed” might have yielded a more apt allusion to Schimmelfing, who certainly has spread the seeds of fitness and health throughout his career. Now retired, Schimmelfing is an ambassador for the Orange County Senior Games, which promotes participation, fitness, competition, and fun for the seniors aged 50-plus. Now 73 himself, Schimmelfing is both a proponent and a participant of Senior Games and an active lifestyle.
“I think about it this way: we don’t stop playing games because we grow old,” Schimmelfing said, “we grow old because we stop playing games. If you’re playing games and having fun, you don’t even feel as old as you really are.”
Lee Schimmelfing prepares for a badminton practice at the Seymour Center on Homestead Road in Chapel Hill. Photo by Randy B. Young
All in a life’s work
Earning his undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Cortland, he then studied at UNC, earning his master’s degree in exercise physiology (“now it’s called exercise and sports science,” he said), where he met his future wife, Lucy.
“I was also the assistant coach of the UNC men’s varsity soccer team,” he said. “Anson Dorrance and I actually played together on the Chapel Hill Town soccer team.”
After earning his master’s degree, Schimmelfing got a job as a health fitness coordinator at General Foods Corporation in White Plains, New York.
“I was there four years,” he said, “and then I worked with another company whose business was corporate fitness management around the country.” Located in Westchester County (New York), Schimmelfing went on to work with numerous corporations, including General Electric, while building a résumé and a family with Lucy.
(The Schimmelfing family is now six-strong, with four grown children: Liza [32-years old], John [37], Anne [40], and Erik [44].)
“I had a regional position in corporate fitness,” Schimmelfing said, “but I also wanted to see my kids play soccer and to coach my kids in soccer and volleyball. Then the opportunity came up to manage that program at IBM (in the North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park).”
“Johnson & Johnson was managing the program for IBM,” he explained, “and I was hired to manage it.”
Members of the jump roping club SkipSations, created by Lee Schimmelfing and his wife Lucy in the early 2000’s, demonstrate their skills at a campus event. Five members of the SkipSations team would be included in the 2013 Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, including (left to right) Chloe Grill, Sarah Seagroves, Cinthia Praiswater, Julia Sonis, and Megan Miller. Photo courtesy of Lee Schimmelfing and SkipSations
“I came down here for quality of life,” he added. “Lucy and I said, ‘You know, when we were here in graduate school, we talked about maybe this would be a great place to retire. Let’s go back and check it out.’ I had no job: we checked out the school system and ended up moving here without a job yet.”
Several UNC professors invited Schimmelfing to Chapel Hill to teach a relatively new corporate fitness course.
“They just wanted to expose the students to a career opportunity,” Schimmelfing said. “They couldn’t pay me, but they did give me a couple of tickets to a Carolina-Duke game.”
“I really wanted to teach the course, though,” he explained, “and they let me put together the syllabus and everything. I taught corporate fitness in UNC’s Exercise and Sports Science Department for…21 years—until this past May.”
Senior moments
Just after turning 60, Schimmelfing discovered the Senior Games.
“I found out how much I enjoyed it,” he said, “but when I saw the benefit for myself and others, I wondered, ‘Why aren’t more people involved?… We should be rocking it!”
As Schimmelfing began phasing out of his full-time job, he focused on introducing more people—as an exercise physiologist—to something that would improve their level of health and fitness.”
“I participated in table tennis, cycling, and bocce,” he said, adding, “You’re talking to the state gold medalist in bocce ball, as well as badminton—those are my two favorites. But we have a basketball shoot, where I won a gold medal at the Orange County games. I also played three-on-three basketball as well, because, well, why not?”
After about three or four years of participation, Schimmelfing decided to get more involved.
“At that point, I was thinking about retiring anyway, so it kind of all came together,” he said. “I was able to kind of fill that void in with…encouraging more people to be involved in fitness activity.”
The games people play
Along with fellow Orange County Senior Games ambassadors Tom Swanekamp, Mark Herboth,
Sharon Roggenbuck, and Alicia Reid, Schimmelfing continues to promote participation, friendly competition, fun, and social engagement.
According to the Orange County Department on Aging and the recreation and parks departments of both Carrboro and Chapel Hill, the local agencies support and promote the North Carolina Senior Games (http://ncseniorgames.org/), “a year-round health promotion program for adults ages 50-plus,” the Orange County website said.
Registration for the Orange County Senior Games, the qualifier for North Carolina Senior Games sporting events, is ongoing, with an early-bird discount through Friday, March 20.
“Each spring, thousands of North Carolinians compete at local events. Winners of local events move on to compete at the state-level and those winners then go on to compete nationally. For more information about the Orange County Senior Games, call Orange County Senior Games Coordinator Latonya Brown at 919-245-4270. Interested artists and athletes can register at “torch.ncseniorgames.org” or visit “www.ncseniorgames.org/orange” or “https://www.orangecountync.gov/198/Senior-Games.”
“Activities include sports and games competitions/tournaments, social activities, and the SilverArts.” Athletic competition is held in archery, badminton, basketball throw, 3-on-3 basketball, billiards, bocce, bowling, croquet, cycling, golf, horseshoes, pickleball, swimming, table tennis, tennis, and track and field.
Visual Heritage arts include basket weaving, crocheting and knitting, fiber arts, jewelry, pottery, needlework, quilting, stained glass, tole painting, weaving, wood carving, wood working, and wood carving, while visual arts categories include acrylics, drawing, mixed media, oil painting, pastels, digital and film photography, sculpture, and watercolors.
Performing arts categories include cheerleading, comedy, drama, dance, instrumental, line dancing, and vocals.
While the Orange County Senior Games competition is open to athletes and artists over 50 years old, athletic competition is broken down by five-year age groups for both males and females. There are no age or gender categories in SilverArts.
Initial events and competition dates for the Orange County Senior Games will begin with a kickoff on Thursday, April 16, followed by events.
An apple a day…
“As we get older, our circle of friends tends to get smaller…(but) if you participate in the Senior Games, your circle of friends gets larger,” Schimmelfing said. “That’s the other thing at the Senior Games: the social aspects of it are probably more important than the competition.”
“For example, most of the players haven’t played badminton for at least 30 years before they come (to the Seymour Center) to practice and play,” Schimmelfing offered. I thought, ‘I used to love playing badminton, but I haven’t played it for so long, so I’ll go and check it out.’ And there’s always somebody here to help you.”
“You might even try out different sports,” he added, “and along the way, you expand your group of friends. I’d never played bocce before, but I was the gold medalist in the North Carolina Senior Games last year. I’ve met so many more friends as a result of participation.”
While Lee “Hodag” Schimmelfing continues to sow seeds of fitness, this local “Johnny Appleseed” is re-introducing fitness to seniors who can reap the rewards of a healthy lifestyle and the social engagement so crucial to wellness.
After all, games aside, the best action is interaction.
“It’s about participation, having fun, getting to know other people and improving your health and fitness,” Schimmelfing said.
While this depiction of the legendary “Hodag” of Fearsome Critters lore shared around logging camps in the late 1800’s stands outside of the Rhinelander, Wisconsin Chamber of Commerce, Chapel Hill’s legendary “Hodag”—a.k.a. Lee Schimmelfing—is a fearless and unwavering proponent and example of fitness, sowing the seeds of senior health like Johnny Appleseed. Photo Credit: CC BY-SA 3.0.
A Dartmouth College graduate, Randy B. Young first worked as an award-winning advertising copywriter in New Hampshire, then in communications at UNC for over 30 years. He maintained an award-winning newspaper feature covering Recreation and Exercise in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro, Orange County. Retired and living in Chapel Hill, Randy continues to write for regional publications both locally and in New England, and his book, And the Stars Flew With Us, is available through Amazon and at independent bookstores. He coaches track at Chapel Hill High and has a photography business, Pierless (sic) Photography. This reporter can be reached at: Information@TheLocalReporter.press
