At some point in our lives, we must admit that we are not the best athletes nor will we ever make millions playing sports.

Some people come to that conclusion early on, such as being picked last every time for dodge ball. Others are still dreaming of that glory, while they're in the prep room for hip-and-knee replacement surgery.

But just because we never made it into the professional leagues or even out of the pee-wees does not mean a life without athletics.

It's just a matter of finding a sport that fits ... and happens to accept adults.

(My husband likes to remind me that he could go back to college and try out for football or basketball or foosball and could -- technically -- make the team because he never used up his eligibility during his days at college. I tell him to just think about it for a little longer, maybe a one, two, 10 years before going after that dream.)

Perhaps the sport you continue to play into adulthood is one that you excelled at during high school -- or just wanted to excel at.

While I'm resigned to just coaching soccer, I have friends from my high school soccer team who still play on organized leagues. Sure, their 5-year-old can dribble circles around them and balls slip into the goal that would never have made it past during high school, but they are still playing. It just involves medication afterward.

Maybe, it's a sport that you could care less about but were expected to be good at. For me, that was basketball since I was taller than most of my classmates by the seventh-grade. Since I couldn't hit the side of a barn with a basketball, I began to dread my basketball games and have refused to dribble a ball since then.

Or it could be a sport you never tried but always thought looked like fun.

Aside from those lame games during P.E. class, I never touched a volleyball until I was in college and played on a sand volleyball league. These days, leagues at the YMCA are available twice a year for adults, giving them twice the chance to either increase their fitness or hurt themselves.

While it was never given as the sole reason, many of friends and I avoided high school volleyball because our freshman year was the first year for bun-huggers at our school. If you don't know what I'm talking about, they are the short, skin-tight shorts that nearly every high school team wears now. They have to come up with a new excuse not to go out for volleyball these days.

The size of the community does not limit a person's involvement.

Right here in Southwest Nebraska and Northwest Kansas, the opportunities are out there if you just look.

For example, the swim league wrapped up last weekend for the summer.

Most people associate swimming with lessons as a small child or hanging out at the pool the entire afternoon because there was nothing else to do. But as we age, the swimming pool becomes a place where you drop off your children and swimsuits are avoided at all costs.

But that doesn't have to be true.

Several adults across the area participated in the summer swim league again this year. Thanks to the guidance (and more patience than I'll ever have) of Tracy Flaska and Stacy Shaddock, several parents were able to join their kids in the pool and not to just save them from drowning. With divisions just for those 30 and older, the adults don't have to worry about competing against some 18-year-old in the prime of her athletic career, much less comparing themselves to each other in their swimsuits.

Actually, playing sports as an adult can be a breeze compared to athletics during your youth.

First, consider that there are no parents whooping and hollering from the sidelines. Instead, they may have been replaced by a spouse. The decision to play a sport with a spouse is a very delicate situation.

My husband and I have tried it both ways -- playing with each other and playing on separate teams. As for the separate teams, we cited the need for one spouse to watch our kids while the other played but in reality, spousal harmony was probably the overlying reason.

Second, rather than unlimited youthful energy taking the place of the lack of physical talent, physical short-comings can be blamed on old joints and aging muscles. You just have to admit that this is probably as good as you're going to get and accept it.

As I said, the summer swim league has wrapped up for the season and the winter league doesn't allow old fogies, I mean adults to compete. So, if swimming is something that sounds interesting, you've got 10 months to perfect your breaststroke, master your breathing techniques and get over wearing a bathing suit in public.

-- Ronda Graff didn't compete in the swim league this summer because she was pregnant. It wasn't that she was embarrassed to be in a swimsuit, but would have had to stay close to the ladder to get herself out of the pool.