Reprinted with permission from the Edgerton Enterprise by Jill Fennema
Athletic ability is often associated with youth. But even the aged enjoy competition. One such person is Wally Runia of rural Balaton. Wally is a champion horseshoe pitcher. He also bowls, and has competed several years in the National Senior Games, which is a 20-sport, biennial competition for men and women 50 and over.
When Wally was 60 years old, he quit dairy farming. He fed cattle for a few years, but when he was ready to retire, a friend suggested he get involved in playing horseshoes. He also took up bowling around this same time. Now 25 years later, Wally still enjoys pitching horseshoes. He is a professional pitcher and member of the National Horseshoe Pitching Association (NHPA).
IN 2015, Wally won a gold medal in the horseshoe event at the 2015 National Senior Games, which was held in the Twin Cities area. He also won a bronze medal in the hammer throw.
Horseshoe Tournaments are usually set up with multiple “classes” of players with similar skill levels grouped together. Class groupings are based on a players “ringer percentage,” which is the number of times a player makes a ringer in 100 tries, on average. A player with a 50 percent average will usually make one ringer for every two pitches. Wally usually throws about 40 percent on average.
Wally says that like all athletes, he has good days and bad days. He recalls one tournament in Utah where he did particularly well. The first two days of the competition were not good for him, but on day three he did really well. “I put on quite a good show that day,” he said.
One of his biggest competitors is from Ft. Pierre, South Dakota, and a couple years younger than him. When Wally turned 90, he moved into a different bracket, so now he’ll have to wait for a couple years for that younger competitor to get into his age bracket. The two are friends and have often stayed at one another homes when traveling to competitions. Of his 87-year-old friend, Wally says, “He’s slowing up a bit.”
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