Elder Statesman Still Holds Court : Recreational basketball: Canoga Park’s Perry Goldberg maintains an up-tempo style at age 70.

Perry Goldberg cradles the basketball in his strong hands, feints, and sends a defender soaring. As his fleeced foe lands, Goldberg drills a 15-foot jump shot from the left side, hitting only net, and then sprints downcourt to harass his man on defense.

This, of course, is quite admirable for a guy who was born when Woodrow Wilson was President, the same year that the 19th Amendment was passed giving women the right to vote. Goldberg was in elementary school when Charles Lindbergh made his historic New York-to-Paris flight.

Goldberg, a Canoga Park resident, is 70 and plays full-court basketball three times a week. But do not get the idea that these games consist of nine other elderly men. His teammates and opponents are as young as 21, and the basketball they play is an all-out, take-no-prisoners style with some of the players consistently working above the rim.

Take it easy on the old guy?

Forget it.

During a recent game, Goldberg drove the lane and promptly was decked by a pair of 30-year-old defenders, men who were 15 years short of their own births when Goldberg, a metallurgist, was working on the Manhattan Project, the development of the atomic bomb that brought an end to World War II.

Goldberg also has learned, during his more than 50 years of playing competitive basketball how to drop a few bombs himself.

“He broke my nose,” said Rocky Lavcello, 39, of Woodland Hills, who regularly competes in the same pickup games as Goldberg at Racquetball World in Canoga Park. “Six months ago. Just broke my nose. I was coming around a pick and Perry was there and boom, I’m down. He just got his arms up and nailed me. It was an accident, but Perry plays hard, no question about it. He plays a tough game.”

After the blow to the beak of Lavcello, Goldberg was the first player to rush to his aid. During subsequent days, he repeatedly checked in on the telephone with the injured player to express his sympathy.

“He called me all the time to make sure I was OK,” Lavcello said. “He kept telling me, ‘You’re the last guy I’d ever try to hurt.’ Perry is a very special guy.”

Goldberg began playing basketball during his school days in Minneapolis during the 1930s, more than a decade before the National Basketball Assn. was formed. He received an athletic scholarship to the University of Minnesota, he said, but had to give it up when basketball began to conflict with his studies. He said that he later engaged in occasional scrimmages during the off-season with the Minneapolis Lakers, including George Mikan, and has never really given up the game.

Recently, Goldberg was taken out of action for several weeks with an injury unrelated to basketball. He choked on a piece of food and doctors ordered him to lay off the layups for a while. But he is back now, pounding the court on Monday, Wednesday and Friday each week. He arrives at the gym at 5 a.m. on game days.

At 70, he concedes, he can use a few extra minutes to limber up.

“That’s very important for me,” he said. “I’m the first guy here each day and I need that extra 30 minutes or so to stretch and loosen up. When the games start, and I have to make a move, I have to feel that my body is ready.”

And it nearly always is.

“He’s for real,” said regular player George Monforte of Camarillo. “He keeps up with any of us. And if you get him the ball, he will score. This is no charity game. He’s in there because he can play. The first time I saw Perry play, he became my idol. Most 70-year-old guys take a few minutes to cross a street. But this guy is really something. No matter how hard you run and work during these games, if Perry is guarding you, he is always with you. Every step. Always.”

Goldberg said he knows he is not being treated any differently on the court because of his age. Which is exactly the way he wants it.

“I play hard,” he said. “I have to. These are all nice guys, but they wouldn’t let me play in these games if I wasn’t competitive. They’re nice fellas, but they just wouldn’t let me play, that’s all. I know that.”

Goldberg attributes his health to the things you would expect. He doesn’t drink. And he doesn’t smoke, although you might have guessed that. The group of all 70-year-old cigarette smokers is not a very large group at all.

Goldberg also pounds down seven vitamins a day.

“I don’t know whether all of the vitamins have helped,” Goldberg said. “But I think it has. I’ll tell you this: I’m not going to stop and find out.”

Beyond the abstinence from alcohol and tobacco and the heavy doses of vitamins, Goldberg believes there is a more important reason why he has put a sort of headlock on Father Time.

“I hardly can imagine that I’m 70 years old,” he said. “When I play basketball, I really feel that I’m in the age category of the young men I play against. I just have never been able to think of myself as an old person. I am very uncomfortable in any senior citizen activities. I just feel I’m not in their class yet. I do have friends my age, but mostly they do the senior citizen activities.

“I know there are very few people my age that regularly come here to the athletic club. And if they do, they tend to stay downstairs, pedaling away on the exercise bikes.”

Goldberg is not a boastful man. He is not the Jack LaLanne type who will tow a dozen rowboats across the harbor in his teeth as the famed exercise guru did several years ago to celebrate his 75th birthday. After Goldberg plays all-out basketball for two hours, he admits that he needs a nice soft place to lie down for a few hours. Or days.

“After I play, I hurt,” he said. “For about 48 hours after the games are over, I walk slowly around the house, moaning and groaning. Sometimes I need help just to get out of the chair.

“But by the time 48 hours have gone by, I’m ready to get back onto the court.”

And then, the memory of the aching knees and sore muscles quickly fades.

“I remember when I first started playing here with these guys,” he said. “They scoffed at me. They smiled and then they picked me last when it was time to choose sides. I had to make several baskets before they even started to pay attention.

“Now, they pay attention.”

Especially the guy whose nose Goldberg broke.

“Perry is an inspiration,” Lavcello said. “We all have a very special feeling for Perry. All you have to do is watch him for a few minutes on the basketball court, watch how he competes. And when you know he’s 70 years old, well, he’s just an inspiration. This is how everyone should try to live their life.”