Alvin Sitterding has had two knee replacements and a reverse shoulder replacement, but he isn’t letting that slow him down.
The Columbus resident and part-time Florida resident competed in six different sports in the Heartland Senior Games in February in the Orlando area, and he won medals in four of them.
“I have bilateral knee replacement, My ankles are going bad, I had rotator cuff surgery,” Sitterding said. “My buddy, he said, ‘You ought to try some of this stuff.’”
So Sitterding tried his hand at bowling, cycling, Euchre, table tennis and track and field. He had the most success in track and field, winning a silver medal in the discus and a bronze in the shot put in the 65-70-year-old men’s division.
Sitterding, who was 67 at the time of games and has since turned 68, had never thrown the shot or discus. He picked it up as a challenge to try to outdo his grandson Jacob, who played football and threw the shot and discus at Columbus East High School and now plays football at Hanover College.
“I thought, you know what, I thought I’d try to beat Jacob’s throws in the shot and discus,” Alvin said. “The guy that beat me threw 175 feet. Jacob said, ‘Grandpa, that guy has $400 shoes on.’”
Jacob Sitterding surprised his grandfather by showing up at the Heartland Senior Games while on his spring break and ended up helping meet workers with the marking of the shot and discus. He was able to give Alvin a few pointers, as well.
“We didn’t know he was going to be off that week,” said Alvin’s wife Jeannie. “So it was kind of neat having Jacob there, considering he’d done that before, telling Grandpa what to do instead of Grandpa telling Jacob what to do all these years. I think that meant more to (Alvin) than the medals, just having Jacob there.”
Alvin also earned silver medals in Euchre and in table tennis with partner Tim Hudy.
“You know what to do (in table tennis),” Alvin said. “It’s just getting the body to move again like it used to. The main thing this is for is to get people active and compete and have a good time and just aren’t sitting around.”
Alvin also teamed with Hudy to take silver in bowling doubles and picked up a fourth-place finish in singles bowling.
“I used to bowl all the time, and I hadn’t bowled in 30 years,” Alvin said. “That was a lot of fun. It makes me want to go bowl again. I used the bowling alley’s bowling ball and rented shoes. I want to go out and buy my own shoes.”
Ironically, the only event in which Alvin did not fare as well was cylcling. He typically rides about 20 miles a day at his Florida home in The Villages, and he and Jeannie lift weights and use the elliptical, treadmill and bicycle three days a week at Mill Race Center when they are in Columbus.
Jeannie was relieved when Alvin finished his cycling race at the Heartland Senior Games unharmed.
“They said, if that shoulder goes out again, there’s no fixing it,” Jeannie said. “So I was worried about that, that he was going to fall off the bike on it.”
Alvin, who originally is from Seymour, retired from Cummins in 2003. He has done some coaching in youth baseball and basketball.
When Alvin and Jeannie are in Florida, they try to watch some Spring Training games. They were at a Tampa Rays game March 12 in Port Charlotte when an announcement came over the public address system that it would be the final day of play because of the coronavirus pandemic.
The Sitterdings also saw University of Indianapolis’ last softball games before the shutdown in Winter Park. Their youngest son Tim had played baseball at UIndy.
By finishing in the top five of a few of his events, Alvin qualified to compete in those events in the Florida State Games in December in Fort Lauderdale. If he fares well there, he could qualify for the National Senior Games, which also are in Fort Lauderdale, in November 2021.
“You want to stay active,” Alvin said. “It was just nice to get out and meet people and compete. That’s a pretty big thing down there.”
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Name: Alvin Sitterding
Age: 68
Hometown: Seymour
Residence: Columbus and The Villages, Florida
Occupation: Retired from Cummins
Family: Wife Jeannie, sons Joe and Tim, grandchildren Jacob and Julia Sitterding
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