Judy’s Got Game

Judy Barton, 85, Wake County Senior Games

Judy Barton, the captain of the Fabulous 80s basketball team, has been participating in Senior Games for 30 years. She has participated in many other events, including tennis, bocce, painting, short story writing, and the football, softball, and basketball throws.

Judy started playing basketball as a high school freshman in a church league, as there were no school sports offered for women at that time, pre Title IX. She continued to play all through high school, and a couple years after high school. “And then I had what was about a 38 year break before I played basketball again,” she says. Then, when Senior Games started offering basketball, she picked it right back up at the age of 55. 

In 1994, she saw an ad saying that Senior Games was going to add basketball as an event and there would be an interest meeting in Raleigh. Judy attended the meeting with a friend, and while there, met 3 other ladies interested in playing. The five women formed the Fabulous 50s basketball team. The team name changes as the ladies age up into a new age group. What started as the Fabulous 50s is now the Fabulous 80s. The team has traveled all over the country to play, including going to “a dozen or so National [Senior Games],” Judy says.

Judy found out she had breast cancer in 1998. Determined not to let that stop her, she went through chemotherapy and radiation. Not only did she beat breast cancer, but the next year she and the Fabulous 60s went to the 1999 National Senior Games in Orlando, Florida. They took home the gold medal!

The team has even been featured in a documentary. Filmmaker, and former college basketball player, Angela Alford followed the team’s journey for the better part of a year. Granny’s Got Game premiered at the Athena Film Festival in New York in January of 2013, and Judy was there to represent her team and watch their story play out on the screen, alongside Academy-nominated films. The film was an official selection in other festivals, and garnered attention from local and national news sources, including ESPN.

Most recently the Fabulous 80s played in the 2019 National Senior Games in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where they won a bronze medal. “I’ve been involved for a long time and made a lot of really good friends over the years. It's been one of the premier things in my husband’s and my life,” Judy says, “You meet a lot of really nice people… one thing about Senior Games is the people are all nice.”