Lingo, whose 70th birthday was Sept. 14, told her friend and neighbor, Marion Lisehora, that she was too old. Lisehora then asked Lingo to keep her company on the drive to and from a Delaware Senior Olympics’ volleyball league practice session in New Castle County. Watching the team go through its paces, Lingo concluded she could probably hold her own.

“I’m just as good as they are,” she recalls thinking.

And, they must be pretty good. Last year, Lingo’s First Staters team, made up mostly of women in their 60s, defeated three other Delaware teams, but all four teams took home gold medals from the national competition because they each led in their age range. In 1997, when there were only enough players for one team, the Lady Wonders, Lingo also brought home a gold medal. And, in October, Lingo’s team again competed in the National Senior Olympics in Orlando, Fla. This year, the team tied for third, winning two games and losing three. “No medals, but it was fun,” she says. “The whole thing was great.”

Lingo, a Milford, Del., native, has been involved in one way or another with volleyball for half a century. While attending the University in the ’40s, Lingo, a physical education major, played volleyball, although there was not an official varsity team at the time. “There was nothing interscholastic at the University then,” she says, “not even intramurals. It was just classes against classes and you signed up to play.”

Lingo was one of only two graduates of the then School of Physical Education in 1951. Her classmate, Doris Goodley Duncan of Wilmington, Del., was the other.

Volleyball as played by these two athletes of the 1950s is different from volleyball of the 1990s. Lingo says the rules used to allow players to hit the ball twice, once for set up, then again to hit over the net. If a player made that move now, the other team would gain a point.

Even today, Lingo says she wishes she were taller. “Height really helps—some of those 50-year-olds can really spike,” she says. But, she notices another difference between her league and the professional leagues of younger women.

“The way 20-year-olds play volleyball!” she says, expressing a mixture of awe and wonderment at the high level of competitiveness and intensity. “We don’t play like that.”

“I think it’s so much fun,” she says. “It’s good exercise. And, we have fun. If someone misses the ball—and you miss some—you miss it. No big deal.”

During her first four years in the working world, Lingo taught physical education to children in grades 1 through 12 in Georgetown, Del. She also served as the coach of the hockey, basketball and softball teams without extra pay. One of her former students, Judy Stevenson, is now a teammate on the First Staters. “She was a good basketball player, one of my good athletes,” says Lingo. “I called all my good former students to see if they could play, but many now have ailments.”

Lingo says Stevenson often teases her about never playing volleyball in her classes.

“She makes me mad when she says we never had volleyball,” says Lingo, smiling. “We did—but not very much. She probably just doesn’t remember because if she did, she’d remember we used to be able to double hit.”

Not only is one of her former students on the team, but also three former students of her husband of 44 years, Raymond D. Lingo. He taught seventh grade social studies in Millsboro for 37 years.

Except for a 10-year hiatus to raise five sons (Ted, Ray, Jim, Jay and Joe), Lingo was employed as a teacher until her retirement in 1992. She taught part time while her children were young. When all her sons were in school, she took a full-time position as a kindergarten teacher, teaching 5-year-olds for 22 years.

“That’s a good age,” she says. “I like the little ones.”

The University of Delaware and teaching are traditions in Lingo’s family. Her sister Kitty Clements Williams, CHEP ’40, is a graduate, as well as two brothers, Jim, EG ’49, and the late Bernie Clements, EG ’44, ’47M. Her sons, Jay, AS ’87, ‘89M, and Joe, CHEP ’91, are both Blue Hens, as are Jay’s wife, Kathy Simmons Lingo, CHEP ’88, and Jim’s wife, Carolyn Morgan Lingo, CHEP ’98M. It tickles the Milford native that Jay, Joe and Carolyn are all employed in the Milford School District, and Kathy previously taught in the Caesar Rodney School District.

Although she says she sometimes thinks about returning for her master’s degree, Lingo stays busy enough with her husband, sons and daughters-in-law, seven grandchildren and her volleyball team. The First Staters practice once a week for two hours.

While it’s too late to sign up for the team that is going to the National Senior Olympics, adults 50 years of age and older are welcome to join the many Senior Olympics teams around the country. For more information, call your local senior center. Residents of southern Delaware may call Indian River School District at (302) 436-1010 to sign up.