By Keighla Schmidt, Staff Writer 

When Betty, Buck, Patty and Dick get together, it’s game time. The foursome plugs a Wii video game console into a 50-inch TV and “bowl” for a few hours.

They swing the vertical hand controller toward the screen displaying the pins and try to knock a few over with their avatars, or “Miis,” made to either look like them or be fantasy characters. They celebrate with words of praise and tease with sarcastic words of jealousy. They’ll laugh at each other and themselves and even throw in a swear word now and then.

Did we mention they’re all between 73 and 91 years young? Harold Buckman: Ninety-one-year-
old Harold "Buck" Buckman "bowls" on
the Nintendo Wii from his wheelchair.
He and his team, the High Rollers, play
in a Wii bowling league each week at
the Burnsville Senior Center.

Aside from their senior status, the group is unique in another way. Burnsville resident Betty Field, 75, is legally blind and can’t see the screen well when she bowls, so she relies on other senses and her teammates to indicate how she’s doing.

Field’s Mii wears bright blue eye shadow clearly visible due to the lack of specks. “Oh making the Miis was a blast,” she said. “My main thing was that I had no glasses.”

Ninety-one-year-old Harold “Buck” Buckman, from Burnsville, bowls from his wheelchair because he cannot stand. His avatar rolls in style, with dark glasses to keep him mysterious.

Dick Johnson, 80, had a stroke and suffers from aphasia, but acknowledged that he enjoys spending time each week bowling with his wife, Patty Johnson, 73 and leaving their Prior Lake home to spend time at the Senior Center in Burnsville.

Each week for about a month the team has met to bowl and record their scores. They’re competing against four other teams at the Diamondhead Educational Center through a program offered by the Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District.  

“It’s really fun, we’re having a blast doing it,” Field said.

Field said she and Patty helped organize the team, calling themselves “The High Rollers,” after a meeting with the Senior Center Advisory Council and Michele Starkey, the senior center coordinator.

Starkey said the inspiration for the league came from an article she read about the fun and benefits the interactive video game provides to seniors. After getting some support from her advisory council, Starkey spent a few hours camped outside a store one morning in line for the console and five teams immediately signed up.

“I like to be doing something,” Buckman said. “I’ve never been to a bowling alley, but I’m having fun here.”

Patty Johnson said her interest was because it was a good opening for her and her husband to get together with other people.

“Basically it’s just really fun. The game itself is fun and it’s a very nice atmosphere,” she said. “It’s a nice opportunity for the rest of us who don’t play cards.”

It also provides a good in for fun conversation with the couple’s 11- and 13-year-old grandsons, who are gamers.

“They’ve been saying for a long time they thought (video games) are good for seniors,” she said. “Now they say to me: ‘See grandma, it gives you good hand/eye coordination.”

After coaching Dick with technical aspects of the game – releasing the correct button at exactly the correct time – Patty had a big smile on her face when Dick got the ball rolling down the alley.

Starkey had a similar reaction.

“He’s come a long way,” she said to the group.

She added there are many benefits she recognizes as a result of the league. “Seeing Dick Johnson with an ear-to-ear smile after he gets it, that’s great, that’s just awesome,” Starkey said.

While the teams stick to bowling because they think it’s most accessible for people across the board, Starkey said another league will start in the fall and if there’s interest, other sports can form leagues.

 Keighla Schmidt can be reached at kschmidt@swpub.com [2].

To view a slideshow of images follow this link: http://www.savagepacer.com/news/general-news/wii-bowling-slideshow-8224 [2]