Tom Lough and Andrew Walker

[00:05] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: My name is Andrew Mordecai Walker My age is 62. Today's date is June 30, 2021. I'm in St. Petersburg, Florida. My partner and colleague today is Tom Low, and they are or he is a participant in the National Senior Games.

[00:37] TOM LOWE: Thank you. My name is Tom Lowe. My age is 78. Today is June 30, 2021. So Andrew got that right. I'm in Round Rock, Texas, usa, and I'm working today with Andrew Walker of National Senior Games.

[00:54] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Thank you, Tom Well, Tom this is really good because we've never had opportunity to shake hands. So it's an honor for me to interview today on StoryCorps and to see you virtually. And I will definitely know who I'm looking for when I see you at the next Games.

[01:15] TOM LOWE: There you go.

[01:16] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: All right. In 2022 in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in May. Let's start off by. I want to ask you a couple questions here about your experience in the Games. And that is, how did you get involved with the National Senior Games?

[01:33] TOM LOWE: Well, National Senior Games, I didn't always know it by that name because when I first encountered something called the National Senior Olympics back in the mid-1980s, it was very interesting to me. I was still in sort of middle age at that time, and I made, remember, making a folder and putting in there all the National Senior Olympic stuff that I could gather. And I followed the development of the organization for several years, but was never in the position to do anything with them by the time I got old enough to compete. So that was sort of, well, mildly frustrating. But meanwhile, I was still athletically active, mostly in running. I enjoyed competing in these local mile runs. And some of the places where I live would have, like a Fourth of July run or a run on the day of the anniversary of the town or something like that. And that was fun to use that as a motivation to just generally stay in shape. And I was usually somewhere in the neighborhood of, you know, five minutes, five, something like that for those races. It was kind of fun, fun to do that. After we moved to Kentucky and I got older and that my schedule slowed down just a little bit, then I was able to follow the new organization. By then it was renamed National Senior Games. And I saw that in 2007 there would be a National Senior Games competition or meet or whatever in Louisville. So in 2006, I hunted up the Kentucky Senior Games and found the track and field information and decided I'd go ahead and see what I could do in the 1500, because that correspond closely to the mile run that I had been training in for a while. So I went to the meet and Kentucky in 2016 and ran a pretty good time, five something and. And qualified to go to Louisville for the national Senior Games of 2007. So that was the first time that I was officially involved with the National Senior Games.

[04:20] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Well, how did you do in those games in Kentucky?

[04:25] TOM LOWE: It was awful. I was fully expecting to run something close to the times I had been turning in, but I ended up with a time that was like seven minutes, 20 something. It was just awful. And I couldn't figure out what on earth had happened. Why could I not run any better? And you know, I wasn't nervous or anything. I had plenty of competitive experience. I just was so out of energy and out of breath. Breath. I just couldn't figure it out. But I do remember before and after my event how inspired I was by the other competitors who were there. You see, this was my first national Senior Games and the first time I had been in the presence of older athletes than me. And it was just amazing to see 80 and 90 year olds who are running around the track and who were throwing the shot in discus and who were high jumping and even pole vaulting. That just had a profound effect on me. And it was a very inspiring situation there to be at the track and field. And I was so glad that happened because I really needed a counterbalance to the disappointment I experienced in my 1500 race.

[06:00] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Right. Well, I understand that you. You learned some things about yourself from that experience.

[06:09] TOM LOWE: Well, yeah, I learned that I should never, should never have full confidence in what my performance can be. But my performance at that race was so far below what I had expected, what I knew I could do, what I had done previously. I decided I needed to go see my doctor and see if there was any medical thing going on that I wasn't aware of. And so they did some tests on me and found that I had a serious heart condition. They diagnosed it as something called heart block and found that I had an abnormally low heart rate because of the way my heart had deteriorated in an electrical way of some kind that it wasn't able to pump fast enough during the race to give me the blood oxygen and energy I needed to do that. And evidently this had happened fairly quickly because just a year ago I was running much faster times. And so here I was trying to figure out what was going on. And they said, well, wear this heart monitor for 24 hours so we can get a better picture of what's going on. And then they came back and said, your heart sounds okay during the day, but at night it goes down to a very low level. And it goes down to such a low level that it's possible that it could have serious consequences for you. And so we need to make sure that you're going to make it through the night and also give you energy in your daily activity. So, so now I'm talking about a heart rate 30 beats per minute or less. It was, it was shocking. So, so let's see, that was like I think the senior games were in July. Well, this was in August. In August I said, all right, we're going to give you a pacemaker. We're going to have to put a pacemaker in so that your heart rate can be stabilized in the evening so you don't have to worry about your. We'll give you a minimum heart rate of say, 60 beats per minute. But then we can program this pacemaker so that when you start exercising, it will increase your heart rate proportionally to, to your effort. Okay, so, so, so we signed up and went to Vanderbilt and they implanted the, the device. And this was all new to me, but it was fascinating. I'm a technology geek. Anyway, I really enjoyed Learning about this 50 cent piece sized thing they slipped in under my skin and then they put a couple of wires connected to different parts of my heart so that it would send the electric signals at the right time for the, for the, for the beats to happen. It's kind of complicated, but, but at the end, after I got everything done and went to all my therapy and stuff, I could tell an immediate difference in my energy level because before I had my pacemaker, I couldn't walk up a complete flight of stairs without having to stop about halfway and resting. And after the pacemaker, I could take the stairs two at a time.

[10:19] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Okay.

[10:20] TOM LOWE: And so I said, all right, now we're back.

[10:24] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Sounds good.

[10:25] TOM LOWE: So, wow, that was all good. And, and I got to starting to jog and work, work out again. And then I started noticing some other symptoms that were kind of discouraging. And so I went back to the hospital and they did some tests and found that this is still in 2007 and found that I had. They detected cancer. Oh man. So they, they found prostate cancer and said that we need to get that taken care of too. Oh me. What else could happen? So by the end of December of 2007, I'd undergone my treatment for prostate cancer and then was trying to turn the corner for 2008. Well, having those two things happen within months of each other was very discouraging. I'm a pretty positive person in general, but it was really discouraging and frustrating and I don't know, I don't want to use the word depressing, but it sort of was to have all that happen all at once. But I decided, well, the Lord doesn't give you more than you can handle at one time. And I'm just going to turn this into a batch processing opportunity here. So. So if we have to have a peacemaker and we have to tackle cancer, let's do it all at once and get it over with. Okay. So we went on with it and. And I got busy in the spring of 2008, as soon as the weather would permit, getting back into the workout and so forth. But I wanted to point out that if I did not have the National Senior Games to look forward to, I don't think I would have been so motivated to get back in shape. I firmly believe that each of us needs a goal to be working toward. And when I finished with the space maker and prostate cancer regimen, I just needed something to pull me forward. And the Prospect of the 2009 National Senior Games was exactly what I needed and exactly at the right time for me. So with an eye to what was it, Palo Alto? I think it was California. I decided I'm gonna buckle down and start training and see what I can do to improve my 1500 time for, for, for the 2009 Games. So I did that and went to qualified with Kentucky Games again in 2008 and then went to California in 2009 and I did pretty well there. I think I finished seventh or eighth with a five minute 50 something time which was greatly improved over seven and a half minutes from two years ago. So it's like I could say to myself, I'm back, great. But I do want to point out that if, if I hadn't had the goal of working toward the National Senior Games and right that opportunity pulling me forward, sure. I just don't know what I would have done. And I really appreciate the National Senior Games being there for that because not only that competitive opportunity, but as I pointed out before, the opportunity to be among a group of senior athletes that were so inspiring just by what they were doing again, I just immersed myself in that atmosphere and Palo Alto being surrounded by people older than I was and competing, running, jumping, swimming, throwing all this stuff, it was just, it was an amazing experience. So as you can tell, I hope the National Sydney Games has a very special meaning for me and a special significance for me.

[15:35] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Yes. Yeah. That's actually, that's an inspiring story in itself. And when I think about, you know, challenging what you had to face with prostate cancer and the challenges of a diseased heart, and then I think about what has happened recently with COVID.

[16:06] TOM LOWE: Do.

[16:06] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: You think you were more prepared by having had faced those challenges?

[16:14] TOM LOWE: I think so. During the COVID era. I don't know what it's going to be called. I was, let's see, I'm 78 now. I'll be 79 next month. But I was certainly in the vulnerable age group. And I have been suffering some sort of pulmonary relapse. I've been worried about my cardiovascular response. I'm having difficulty with my cardiovascular endurance right now, and I don't know why, but. So I was a little worried about the pulmonary aspect of the COVID situation, but, you know, just follows a sensible regimen of being masked and social distancing and not doing unnecessary trips and so forth.

[17:09] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Right.

[17:10] TOM LOWE: And getting the vaccination when it was available. So it turned out that the COVID really didn't have that much of an impact on me as I thought it might have.

[17:24] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Great.

[17:25] TOM LOWE: That was in, that was due to a couple factors. One was my physical conditioning was probably a little better than the average person in my age group because I had continued to, to do running regularly. And then I think the attitude I had about movement and staying in shape, that sort of thing, that was encouraged by my participation in the National Senior Games helped with that. I participated in every National Senior Games since Louisville up through Birmingham in 2017.

[18:16] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Right.

[18:17] TOM LOWE: And by the time we got to Albuquerque in 2019, I think that was when all this stuff was first starting and things just were not working out well for me here. So I think my eligibility has been brought forward now to 2022, and I'm really looking forward to getting over to Fort Lauderdale in May of 2022.

[18:45] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Yeah, that's right. We, we've made some amendments to the qualification process because of COVID So you're right. You, you participated in 2017. So in Birmingham, that gives you a favorable qualifying position if you have not had an opportunity to qualify in any state games.

[19:11] TOM LOWE: Yeah.

[19:12] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Yep.

[19:14] TOM LOWE: Well, I'm planning to go to the Texas State Games in October.

[19:19] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Great.

[19:20] TOM LOWE: I want to run through the 800. 1500. I, I, I added the 800 to my competitive program in 2011 in the Houston Games, and it wasn't all that encouraging, but I stayed with it and kept Improving. I think I improved more in the 800 than I did in the 1500, but I eventually ended up getting a silver medal in, in Birmingham for the 800, and that was about the highest wonderful position I've been able to win so far. But some of those competitors are really gifted athletes. They.

[20:05] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: That's right.

[20:06] TOM LOWE: They work hard and, and they, they, they're able to really put it all out on the track there. And I think it's wonderful that, that our competitors bring out the best and all of us. And I think it's up to those of us who don't cross the finish line first to make whoever is ahead of us earn their slot. And we do that in a respectful manner, and I think they respect us for it. So everywhere I see all the National Senior Games athletes, they hug each other and cheer up each other and the winners console the losers and everybody and is very respectful of each other regardless of their performance.

[20:53] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Yeah, that. Well, that, that speaks to that inspiration. So there's a lot of connection and socialization in addition to competition. Yeah, yeah. You know, you were a. Or you are an olympian from the 68 Olympics and you just shared about your challenges with your health, and you really had to work and work hard physically to get back into shape. I know you had to work really hard to prepare for the six to eight Games, which. Is there any comparison between the preparation for the Games in 68, the Olympic Games, and you're preparing to keep your health and well being at tip top.

[21:51] TOM LOWE: Oh, yeah, yeah. I think there's a bumper sticker. It says, work smarter, not harder.

[21:57] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Okay.

[21:58] TOM LOWE: And so back in the day, I was training for the modern pentathlon. It's an Olympic event that's been on the program since 1912 that involves horseback riding, over jumps, fencing, pistol shooting, swimming and cross country running. And back in my day, in the mid-60s, we had to work out in every sport every day. That made for a long, tiring day, and it didn't leave a whole lot of time for other activities like professional activity, social activity, or anything else you want to do except sleeping or resting. But, but during that time, I tried to study myself and learn about not just the physical aspects of preparing for something like that, but also the mental and, and spiritual aspects as well, because I feel these are universal things that can be brought forward regardless of how old someone is. For example, in there was sort of a mental attitude I managed to develop that I think has stood me in good stead through the years where I try to view things from A positive perspective and try to try to find a way to move forward instead of living in the past or feeling depressed or discouraged about something. I feel the past is all gone and nothing we can do about it. But we can revisit it to an extent and learn from it and take these lessons and help ourselves and others make improvements in their lifestyle or their, their accomplishments going forward. So I think going forward is probably one of my bigger bumper stickers that I learned from that. Also during my life period I learned the value of spiritual faith. I had a number of challenging situations that I had to work through during the 66 to 68 time frame and immediately thereafter. And if it wasn't for my spiritual faith, I don't think I would have come through as strongly. I know I wouldn't have come through as strongly as I was able to at the time. And I've tried to maintain those mental attitudes and those aspects of spiritual faith in my life ever since and then to be applying them today in my preparations. Now since I only have one event or well, two events, 800 and 1500 I'm training for, that simplifies the training. All you got to do is right, just got to run, get in shape and do a little tempo and interval training, then maybe a time trial or two and that's pretty much, you're pretty much ready right for the races. But making time during a schedule that has lots of other priorities has always been a special challenge. But my family has been very supportive and encouraging. They've been very flexible in helping me and they understand that oh yeah, Dad's got to run between such and such and so, and so the times and that sort of thing. Also the, I guess the some you have to make some choices in terms of your support group for training. There's lots of running groups around, there are running laboratories, there's a lot of technology available now. But I just decided to keep a low key approach and to just run on my own pretty much by myself when I could. And that's worked for me. I'm not sure it would work for everyone, but it worked for me. And the other thing that I like to emphasize is that I have placed a very high value on medical support throughout my time, especially during the time after 2007, and have always kept my doctors informed of my situation. I always consulted with them on any particular challenges that I was going to place before myself. And I'd like to encourage anyone who might be thinking about changing lifestyle to something a little more active perhaps. Please do that. Only in consultation with your physician so that you have that additional medical perspective on that. Back in my day, we had a couple of bumper stickers. One was no pain, no gain. I'm sure you've heard of that one, right? But there was this, there was this sort of a hierarchy of discomfort, pain and injury. And so back when I was young, we would always work through discomfort and we would work through pain up to the point where we were just short of injury and we would maintain our performance right at that level because that's what will be required at the national and world class level. And that's still the case today. If you look at some of these Olympic trials that have just completed, there are people who have performed up to the edge of injury of injuring their legs or like in the gymnastics, or injuring their bodies with, with these terribly difficult maneuvers on the board and so forth. Well, for me, as a senior athlete or a mature athlete, whatever you classify me as, I've changed my approach. And so I work through discomfort up to the verge of pain and I no longer allow myself to endure any pain in my workouts. So I'm not go there, okay? Because to some extent I associate pain with injury and I just don't want to go there. I don't want to put it unnecessary, right? Unnecessary challenge or unnecessary load or work on my body that, that goes beyond discomfort. So I'm not out to change the world. I'm not out to set a world record or anything like that. I want to have fun. I want to maintain my body in a good, solid physical condition, keep my doctors happy. I want to stay in the company of those inspiring older athletes at the national Senior Games and just live a full life. We all have. Talk to any older person. There's always a list of pains they're going through. There's always a, my foot hurts today, my back hurts and all this stuff. You just have to work through that. And as long as it's just a discomfort, then everything is good. But when it gets to be painful, that's when you have to worry about, you know, getting the medical community involved and figure out to what extent can I work against this in my physical activity. I went on and on. I'm so sorry. No, Tom gave you a lot more than you wanted.

[29:58] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Well, actually it's great because you somehow anticipated all of my questions. And so, you know, it's great because you were able to do it in a very elegant way. I think this last bit, this last bit that you, you brought out about the. Which actually illustrates Wisdom, you know, you, you are seasoned now and I was going to ask you about advice and for other people that are considering getting ready for the Senior Games or people who are training. And I think you laid out a good principle and that's one principle and that is less. Sometimes it's better that you don't have to push yourself after as you have age, you don't have to push yourself as much. You need to be wise with your, listen to your body and hopefully as time is going on, people can be more sensitive to that. Although there are some people who try to train a few weeks right before the Games and they wind up, you know, doing some injury to themselves. And that's one thing I worry about as director of health and well being for the Senior Games. I want people to be fed and be active, but injury free as best. Best as they can.

[31:25] TOM LOWE: Yeah. Yeah.

[31:27] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Tom I have a couple other questions, unless you want to add something to what I just said.

[31:31] TOM LOWE: Yeah, I think that's a great perspective because it would be for a person who has not had an active lifestyle, coming into contact with the concept of the National Senior Games and wanting to get involved. We need to find ways for them to do so gradually and safely so that they can enjoy the experience and not injure themselves or get discouraged themselves in the process. And so that would be my caution to anyone listening that we invite you, we love to have you. We hope that you would consider a more active lifestyle, even if it's just putting one foot in front of the other a few more times a day. And by the way, there are walking competitions in the National Senior Games front ground too, so.

[32:23] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Exactly.

[32:24] TOM LOWE: We got, we got a place for you, baby.

[32:27] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: That's right. That's right. And that place is open to anyone you don't have, you don't have to qualify for that. You can pay the entry free and fee and show up and walk.

[32:41] TOM LOWE: There you go.

[32:42] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: I know we're running out of time here and I'm going to ask one question that I have to ask because I'm a fan of the six to eight Olympics and this more recent years, there have been, I guess, opportunities for athletes to be involved with representing their sport, but also with issues that mean something to them. Is there anything you want to reflect on as you observed the 6, 8 Olympics and compared to what's happening in the Olympic arena these days with what athletes stand for? Allison Felix has been involved with women's issues and the right, so to speak, to be pregnant and still be sponsored by a major, you know, brand, that was, you know, one topic. And as you know, there have been a lot of things in our social experience these days around social justice. What do you think about some of those things?

[33:56] TOM LOWE: Yeah, there's just so many perspectives. It is a complicated issue and I'm not sure there's any right or wrong way to look at it. But what I like to do is to explore different perspectives as they relate to what has happened. For example, back in 1968, when John Carlos and Tommy Smith were on the, excuse me, were on the podium and performed their silent gesture of protest, I, I remember thinking, oh man, they, they mixed the politics with the Olympics. And I, I thought that I was just sort of wincing when I'd heard the news. But then I remember my childhood in Virginia and North Carolina with the, with the different Jim Crow situations at the time, and I could understand a little bit about why they would be motivated to do something like that. And over the years, I've come to appreciate the courage that it took for them to do what they did on the stand. I've also developed some other perspectives from the point of view of organizers of events because I've done some event planning and organizing myself and recognize that there is a point of view from that of an organizer that something that's unplanned or unexpected can in fact detract from the planned purpose of the event. And I won't, I don't think it's like hijacking or anything, but it could be seen as sort of detracting. And the way I'll bring that forward to the, to our present day is to point out the difference in the perspectives of the US Olympic and Paralympic Committee and the perspective of the International Olympic Committee with respect to actions of athletes in the Olympic Games. The U.S. olympic and Paralympic Committee has adopted a fairly tolerant perspective of allowing athletes voice to communicate some of their perspectives as part of their athletic experience. And the International Olympic Committee has maintained a fairly strong perspective on their rule number 50, which prohibits any expression of these types of motivates. So those two perspectives persist today. And I think that points out the complexity of the issue, that it's important for each of us to look at both sides of something and examine it with respect to our own fundamental beliefs and values. So I hope those are helpful remarks.

[37:12] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: But anyway, absolutely.

[37:13] TOM LOWE: But that's sort of where I've come down after thinking about it a long time and having experienced part of it personally.

[37:24] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Well, that's a very informed perspective and that actually will give us a good Segue to another opportunity to talk again in the future. And I will hold those two ideas in mind as a model for us to engage in future interview. But also I think it's great insight for the political world that we live in now. It's been able to hold different concepts in mind. And so we can talk about that in the future and we can talk about your military experience in the future. We don't have time to do that. And we can Talk about the 68 Olympic alumni reunions you've done and the oral history legacy archive at University of Texas. Those are all things you've been involved in. So those are fascinating discussions we can do at another time.

[38:25] TOM LOWE: Okay.

[38:26] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Thank you so much. It's been wonderful. My pleasure. And your inspiration.

[38:30] TOM LOWE: Well, I thank you. I think Mark and Dale and you and all the National Senior Games organizers. There's one particular group, though, I would like to point out that I don't think ever received achieves the appropriate amount of recognition, and that is that at the state level and at the national level, the National Senior Games would not be possible without the participation of the sponsors and of the massive number of volunteers who.

[39:00] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Correct.

[39:00] TOM LOWE: To make those events the successes that they are. Every time I'm at the Senior Games, state or national, and I see someone at a table or a desk or with a clipboard, I go over, ask, are you a volunteer? And if they say yes, I thank them and shake their hand to make sure they're properly appreciated by at least one athlete who's there, knows that they gave their own time to be there and to help make the event a success.

[39:30] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: You're exactly right. The athletes volunteer and, you know, we should give them some sort of standing ovation at future events. Yeah. For the volunteer time. And. And so the National Senior Games will be in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2022, 23rd.

[39:52] TOM LOWE: So be there or be square, as we used to say.

[39:55] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: That's right. And you've, you've given, you didn't give away all your training secrets, so you gave away just enough to encourage people to get ready.

[40:04] TOM LOWE: There you go.

[40:05] ANDREW MORDECAI WALKER: Thank you. Thank you so much, Tom

[40:07] TOM LOWE: My pleasure. A pleasure to be here. Thank you.