Athlete profile: Ira Glick

Sport: Basketball

Age: 75

Occupation: Professor of Psychiatry at Stanford School of Medicine and Stanford University Medical Center

Challenge: To continue to hang-in-the-air and do reverse, double-pump layups

Education: Dickinson College; N.Y. Medical College; Psychiatric Training, Mt. Zion Hospital and Hillside Hospital

Professional affiliations: UCSF, Cornell University Medical College, Stanford Medical School

Family: Wife Juannie Eng; daughter Rachel (44); son Jonathan (40); son Brandon (20); and daughter Olivia (16)

Residence: San Francisco

Dr. Ira Glick plays basketball because he “loves it” and because it helps him to stay healthy — mentally and physically. He began playing as a youth in New York and has never stopped, regularly playing regardless of his schedule or where he is in the world.

His international experiences include: In 1991, when Glick was playing at the Pan Am Maccabi Games in Uruguay, the Minister of Health asked him to lecture to the country’s psychiatrists.

In 2003, in India as a Fulbright scholar, Glick gave daily medical lectures throughout the country. He found a basketball court at a Jesuit University and was asked by the coach to teach to the university’s point guards, which he did for three days in 100-plus degree heat.

Last year, while lecturing in Casablanca, Glick sought out a basketball game. After much effort, his guide found a large gymnasium. Young Arab and African guys threw him a ball to shoot hoops on his own.

After they watched him shoot, they asked him to scrimmage. Two hours later, they ended up trading jerseys. On the way out, Glick learned they were players on Morocco’s top professional basketball team.

In the U.S. Glick may be the only physician who has played basketball games against two hard-core prison teams. While at Cornell, he played with NYC’s 92nd St. Y team at Sing Sing; with the UCSF Medical Center team, Glick played at San Quentin. He made it out, “despite being out played.”

For the March 26 basketball competitions at Stanford at the 2011 Bay Area Senior Games/California State Senior Games Championships, Glick is co-captain with Jim Newman of the 3 v 3 men’s team that started in the 1960’s, the ‘Nor Cal Sharks.’ With many of the same players, such as Tony “Bones” Davis, they now compete and most often win gold in the men’s 70-plus age group at Senior Olympic Games in California and other locations, including the biennial National Senior Games.

Glick recently played pickup with some NBA team players in the Bay Area and has consulted for the National Basketball Association, hired by NBA commissioner and friend David Stern. He is recognized as one of the fathers of the field of sports psychiatry and authored the 2010 article “Sport Psychiatry: A new frontier in a challenging world.”

After decades of playing basketball, Glick said: “It makes me feel good just to be out there, like I’m making the most of the one life I have.”

It’s been heard in pickup basketball games from an opposing defender when he’s on the court, “Who’s guarding that guy?”