Senior athlete Mike Harris had a big 2024, but 2025 is perhaps his best year ever.
He will participate in the national senior games in table tennis and pickleball. More than 11,000 athletes, from 50 to 95 years old, will participate in 26 sports from 30 July to 3 August in des Moines, Iowa.
Harris, 58, a specialist in logistics management at the Aviation and Missile Command, qualified by ending in the top four in his events last April at the Senior Games of Alabama. The state qualification for pickleball was held in Opelika and the state qualification for table tennis was held in Tuscaloosa at the University of Alabama.
I was very excited, Harris said. I had practiced a lot in advance to prepare for the Senior Olympic Games.
He also qualified in tennis for national competitions, but will not compete in that sport in the Moines because of planning. The state qualification for tennis was held in April in the Tuscaloosa Tennis Complex.
The main goal is to play well in my sporting events and to help my teammates win their divisions, Harris said about his goal for the national competitions.
He will compete between the ages of 55-59 in singles, Doubles and mixed doubles in both table tennis and pickleball. His teams are 256-pickleball and northeast alabama table tennis. Harris Alabama teammates are Barry Putman of Attalla, Chicken Chappell from Oxford, Donnie McGinnis van Munford, Lori Cochran van Pell City and Laurie Hereford from Birmingham.
Harris, from Alexandria, worked for 18 years at Anniston Army Depot to switch to Amcom in 2021. Until the governments return to the office, he shed two hours a week out of his house in Alexandria. Now he stays during the working week with fellow table tennis player Mike Wetzel of Decatur.
The resident of Anniston and his wife of 15 years, Melissa, have three children two girls and a boy and a grandson.
Last 3-7 July, Harris participated in the US National Table Tennis Championships in the Von Braun Center in Huntsville. This was the first time in the history of the US 90-year history of the US that the National Championships in Alabama were played.
It went pretty well. There were many really skilled players, Harris said. I played in one event for table tennis and served as a volunteer at the Control Desk. Most of my time was spent working, but I did get a tennis off the table for one event.
And I was defeated, but that's okay, he said laughing. It was nice as long as it lasted.
He was more successful in the qualifications of the state in April, which allowed him to travel to the Nationals for the second time in his career. In 2017, Harris participated in table tennis before the age of 50-54 in the national senior competitions in Birmingham. He received a ribbon for making the top eight in his division for men's doubles. Harris qualified for the 2023 national senior competitions in Pickleball and table tennis, but did not make that trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In 2029 it will return to Birmingham, he said. This year Harris hopes to be one of the contingent from Alabama who deserves national medals and the possibility of GOV. Kay Ivey in Montgomery to meet.
We have our team training every week in Oxford during our competitions, he said. We have a competition format and we practice.
