He wanted to fulfill a dream that was cut short by an injury 40 years ago that forced him to quit baseball and college when he lost the athletic scholarship he was on. Now, at 61, he has re-enrolled for a career and, thanks to his high level of golf, has been chosen for the Bellevue University, Nebraska, golf team.
His name is Don Byers, he is the father of three children and grandfather of four grandchildren, and he has a 2.8 handicap. He played 170 rounds of golf last year, enjoying ample time thanks to the flexibility afforded by a successful insurance agency he acquired in the 1980s.
When varsity coach Rod Brown asked him if he’d be interested in making the team, Don thought it was a joke. But it wasn’t.
Byers has become the oldest collegian in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics since Ala Moore played at age 61 for Alabama’s Faulkner University soccer team in 2011.
Byers, in his freshman year of college, has no privileges despite his proving age, and is forced from time to time to carry his classmates’ bags of sticks down from the van.
The veteran student works three mornings in his office and attends classes on campus three days a week, where he takes History and Communications.
The reaction of Byers’ wife, Deb, to whom he has been married for 38 years, when he told her he was being recruited for the college golf team was one of disbelief and sarcasm. “Yeah, right,” she commented wryly. When she realized it wasn’t a joke, Deb vowed to support him, “Go for it, do it, I don’t think many people get this opportunity.”
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