Shuffleboard Keeps Retirees Hitting Deck

Mabel Glenn, 86, gripped her 6-foot cue stick with grim determination and gazed, steely-eyed, at the triangular-shaped box at the far end of the court.

WHAM!

It was her hammer shot--the last of her four discs to be played. She blasted her opponent’s black disc out of the 10-point spot, and replaced it with her own.

“Every time I play Mabel, she beats me. My God, that woman has keen eyes. Shufflers have a saying: ‘Watch out for little old ladies in white sneakers, they’ll kill you,’ ” laughed Frank Howard, 76, a husky 6-foot player.

Glenn is only 4-foot-10 1/2.

But she’s no run-of-the-mill shuffleboard player. She’s one of America’s 80 top players and has been inducted in the National Shuffleboard Hall of Fame, which is on the grounds of the St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club.

Glenn won the women’s national championship five years ago, when she was 81, the latest of a string of major tournaments she won in more than 40 years of play.

“I play five days a week. It takes constant practice to stay competitive,” insisted Glenn, who with her late husband owned a Studebaker agency in South Bend, Ind. “How many 86-year-old women can bend down and touch their toes, still feel their ribs? Shuffling keeps me young.”

St. Petersburg--named after the city in Russia, hometown of Peter Demens, who brought the railroad here in 1885--is the shuffleboard capital of America.

“The St. Petersburg Shuffleboard Club became the first shuffleboard club established in the world in 1924. It has more courts (60) and more members (450) than any other shuffleboard club anywhere,” explained Ellen Anderson, 63, the club’s president.

In 1947, at the peak of its membership, the St. Petersburg club had 8,331 members. “Our membership took a nose dive in recent years, because all of the motor home parks established their own clubs, and drained off our membership, but we’re experiencing a renaissance,” said Anderson.

All the courts were resurfaced late last year. The club’s ballroom, bridge and bingo auditorium, checker rooms, offices and club house were painted and renovated a few months ago.

Many top tournaments are played at the St. Petersburg club, including the annual masters play, featuring the best 16 men and best 16 women players in the world. The international tournament has been played here, with leading shufflers from Australia, Japan, Canada and the U.S. competing.

During its heyday “St. Pete’s” Club, as it is affectionately called, had its own 25-member orchestra, made up of shuffleboard players. It still has its own band, playing Saturday night dances, a tradition dating back to 1930.

St. Petersburg has been a favorite retirement area, ever since the 1880s, when the American Medical Assn. called it one of the healthiest places to live.

Shuffleboard originally called shoofleboord has been a popular deck sport on ocean-going liners since the early 1800s. It went ashore in 1913 in Daytona Beach, when Robert Ball and his wife created a court at their Lyndhurst Hotel for guests to amuse themselves. The next place to have a shuffleboard court was the St. Petersburg club. Retired people wintering in Florida picked up on the game, and the rest is history.

“Retirees have been wintering here for more than a century, but it is shuffleboard that really put St. Petersburg on the map,” said club president Anderson, who retired here eight years ago with her husband. They owned a plaster statue business in New York. “This was a sleepy one-horse town, until shuffleboard came along.

“This club was responsible for the growth of St. Petersburg. Retirees headed for St. Pete’s in droves in their tin lizzies on dirt roads in the winter months to shuffle. The thousands of shufflers pour money into the area.”

Today, more than 50,000 players are members of shuffleboard clubs in Florida. The St. Petersburg club is the national shrine of the sport. The club office is filled with cue sticks, willed by members who die. Visitors may rent these treasured cues for $1. Members and others often bequeath some or all of their estates to the St. Petersburg club. Three years ago, club member Beulah Dunbar, 95, died, and left the club $100,000.

Many of the game’s best players have been members of the “St. Pete” club, including Mae Hall, now in her 90s, heralded as “the greatest shuffler in the history of the sport.”

Inside the hallowed Shuffleboard Hall of Fame is the world’s only shuffleboard museum.

Average age of players is 65. Anderson explained it’s the game of the retired set, because they have the time to practice five to seven days a week and to pursue league and tournament play. They also don’t seem to mind that the purses for winners are minimal, with top prizes usually under $50.

The St. Pete club president plays a mean game. On her desk is a plaque with the words “It’s Hard to Be Humble When You’re Great.”

“There is drama on the court every day,” said Anderson, born in the Bronx, and graduate of Roosevelt High School in Yonkers. “These people are addicted to the sport.

“In a recent club tournament, a 75-year-old man threw his cue stick over the club house like a javelin, when he missed a key shot. An 80-year-old man broke his stick over his knees.”

Men and women compete on an equal basis. Some play singles, one person against another, while others play team, with four players, two on each side. First player or team to score 75 points wins.

Players push four discs each in alternate fashion down the court with their cues. Their shots are described as bumping, doubling, snuggling, caroms, kitchen shots and backstop shots.

Willie Wolf, 70, known by shufflers from coast to coast as “Mr. Shuffleboard,” has been a wheelchair player 45 years. He was paralyzed after being shot in battle in the Philippines in World War II.

Wolf, secretary of the National Shuffleboard Assn., is the sport’s official statistician and historian. He estimates there are more than 1 million active shufflers in the United States; the No. 1 shuffleboard state, he says, is Florida, closely followed by California and Arizona. The sport is played in all 50 states and is also popular in Canada.

Many of the sport’s leading players are at their peak performance in their 70s and 80s. It is not unusual to have players in their 90s, burning up the courts, and wiping out their opponents.

“Shuffling is one of the most complicated games played. It takes tremendous concentration and skill,” insisted “Mr. Shuffleboard.”