(bright piano music) - [Jason] Like a methodical drum beat, back and forth they go.

The hand-eye coordination, stable feet, bouncy knees.

Some call it ping pong.

Most of the world calls it table tennis.

- I basically just started playing when I was 62.

- [Jason] James Brown is 73 now and yeah, that's his name.

- My dad's name was James Brown, his dad's name was James Brown.

- [Jason] And James is gearing up for competition in the Meck County Senior Games, training with Nigel Christopher, a former national champion in Trinidad, and Greg Riley, a former national champion in Barbados.

- My goal is to win a national championship at the Senior Games.

Everything else is just preparation for that.

- [Jason] Athletics have always been a part of James' life.

- Track, football.

- [Jason] For more than two decades, he was a competitive cyclist.

- And in those years I averaged like nine to 10,000 miles a year on a bicycle.

- [Jason] And prior to that went to Johnson C Smith University on a swimming scholarship.

But his best sport these days isn't in the pool.

It's the game of pool or billiards if you prefer.

- And you know, I've played pool ever since I was 15.

A game of eight ball, I rarely miss more than three times.

- [Jason] Billiards and table tennis are just two of the roughly 53 different events in the Meck County Senior Games, which are underway now.

But what you might be surprised to know is that not all of the events are what you'd consider sports.

- There's something for everyone, whether you're an artist, a poet, a woodworker, a sprinter, a corn hole king in your neighborhood, whatever.

There's something that everybody could enjoy in our local Senior Games.

- [Jason] The main focus of the games is to get people involved and to have fun, which roughly 250 to 300 people in Meck County do annually.

And you certainly don't need to be a competitive athlete like James to take part.

- I think the fun things are the things that you can play in your backyard, corn hole, shuffle board, anything like that that lots of people could just pick up and do.

You know, badminton, a lot of people can put a net up in their backyard and their kids play out there, with the grandkids.

Well, grandma and grandpa can get out there and play with 'em.

- [Jason] And through its 40 years of existence, the minimum age to participate in the games has dropped, first from 60 to 55, then 55 down to now 50.

- Lots of people do three, four or more.

One man has signed up for 13 different things this year.

So, and he's in his eighties.

- [Jason] That man is 88 year old Belmont resident, David Hostetler.

- Well I always like to compete, and I like to make friends whether I win or whether I lose.

- He's always been a competitor, whether it's in his work or his sports or whatever he's doing, he wants to be the best.

He's an amazing backgammon player and chess player too.

- [Jason] If you want to talk about active seniors, David just might be the definition of it.

He didn't start competing in the Senior Games until he was 69, but has done everything from corn hole and badminton, to the football toss and the long jump.

- Everything from golf, to bowling, to billiards and the high jump.

Yeah, I run the 50 meter and then I throw, in that other one I throw five of them, the discus, the hammer, the javelin and the shot put.

- [Jason] No kidding.

(David laughs) - They're all fun.

- He's an amazing role model and not only that, but he manages his business still.

He mows his own yard, he puts out mall to me.

He's running circles around most of us all the time.

- [Jason] He's been featured in local newspapers and has done so well over the years, he's advanced to the state games in Raleigh and national games around the country.

- They do the age bracket.

So when he was moving into the 85's and over category he was really excited because he thought he could dominate that age category.

- Well, I'm gonna be 89 in July, and so that's not gonna be long until I'm 90.

And I really look forward to that, because that puts me in a different bracket.

- [Jason] At last year's nationals in Florida, David carried the state flag during opening ceremonies and he's racked up tons of hardware along the way.

- I won the gold medal down there in corn hole and the silver in, three silvers in badminton.

Here's Mecklenburg County, the small one.

- Yep.

- And the state, you can always tell it because it's a big square one and it's got the state and it's got the Olympic flag.

And in most states these games are called the Senior Olympics.

North Carolina calls them the Senior Games.

And then here's the one, the gold in corn hole at Fort Lauderdale, Florida last year.

It's got the palm trees.

There's the torch right there, the Olympic torch.

- [Jason] Donning his lucky hat as he calls it, David is right now simultaneously competing in the Meck County games as well as the Gaston County Games, here, tossing in shot after shot on the corn hole board at the Gaston Senior Center in Dallas.

And now that his own children have hit the 50 year old mark, they too are now eligible to participate.

So David was quick to recruit his daughter Kami, to be his mixed doubles partner in badminton.

- But they had to go through a lot to understand that they're seniors.

They don't want, they don't wanna be seniors.

(David and Jason laugh) - [Jason] For these seniors, it's about keeping active, having fun, making friends, and in the process, hopefully winning.

Although in many ways you can say they already have.

For "Carolina Impact," I'm Jason Terzis reporting.