Bio: Bill Heckman, 76, has been playing sports since he was a kid growing up in Chicago, so he wasn’t about to give it up when he retired from careers in the military, engineering and education. The father of six has cut back, but still teaches one math course a semester at Arapahoe Community College. He and his wife of 50 years live in a house they built on a spacious parcel of land east of Chatfield Lake.
From March through August each year, the Littleton resident plays on a couple of senior men’s softball leagues, including the “Scrap Iron 75s,” a team made up of men 75 and older. Heckman plays various infield positions during about 100 games a year, and will travel to Texas and Washington state later this summer for tournaments. He’s also an avid handball player, winning honors last year in a national doubles tournament.
Challenge: A decade ago, Heckman was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a chronic disease characterized by inflammation of the lining of the joints. “It was so painful I had to crawl up the stairs,” he says. “Everything hurt.”
His doctor advised him to stop exercising, but he wouldn’t hear of it. He started taking medication and kept playing ball. Since then, he’s had surgery on both knees and an operation for a torn rotator cuff. He also was treated for prostate cancer and admits that while the initial diagnosis didn’t cause him to lose sleep, he gets nervous before the twice-annual blood tests that determine if the cancer has come back.
Accidents on the softball field barely faze Heckman, and he described two as freak occurrences. While playing a game about four years ago, he took his eye off the ball to steal a glimpse at a runner and “caught a line drive with my mouth and received 12 stitches on my lip.” Five days later while running for a fly ball he misjudged the distance and was hit above the left eye, earning a cracked orbital bone, a concussion and five more stitches. Again, he ignored his doctor’s advice to quit. “Exercise and fitness are as close as we will ever get to finding the fountain of youth,” he says.
How he’s doing it: “You just get up every day and do it,” he says. “Why is it you feel sore when you get up, but if you keep moving, you feel better?”
On days when he’s not playing ball, he lifts weights at the gym.
He also watches his diet, opting for lean meats, and tries to ignore his chocolate cravings. “I’ve been trying to lose the same 5 pounds for 30 years,” he says.
Best advice: First, he says, “Your body is meant to be used and not abused,” noting that he won’t play injured and that he’s learned how to read the signals that his body gives him.
Second, he says, “You can’t quit. Even when you don’t want to go to the gym, force yourself and you’ll feel better afterward.”
Still working on: Getting out there and playing softball, no matter what health issues come his way.
“Every year when the team gets together for the first time,” Heckman says, “we shake hands and say, ‘we made it another year.”‘
– Suzanne S. Brown
Do you know someone who has lost a lot of weight, rebounded after an illness or made a healthful lifestyle change? Send a name, daytime phone number, a description and photo to Fitness, The Denver Post, 1560 Broadway, Denver, CO 80202, or e-mail to living@denverpost.com.
