Newport Beach resident Ralph Deppisch hasn’t quite been playing basketball for all eight of his decades on this earth, but close enough.

Let’s say seven decades and some change.

On Tuesday and Friday mornings, you can usually find him at the same place. Deppisch makes the short drive from his home near Newport Harbor High over to the other side of the bay, to the Newport Beach Athletic Club.

He’s one of the originators of a half-court three-on-three basketball game there that has been going for nearly 25 years.

“These guys are very competitive and cutthroat, and they’ve always included me,” Deppisch said on a recent Tuesday morning at the gym. “No matter how old I got, they always let me play. I got older, but I kept playing, because they invited me to play. I’m the face of this whole thing, but it’s really about all of these guys in the community that are friends.”

Of course, most of the other players are in their late 50s or early 60s. Then, there’s Deppisch, who turned 80 on Oct. 17 but still has a rock-solid game.

There’s the consistent jump shot. The precision passing. The left-handed hook shot that just might make Kareem Abdul-Jabbar a bit embarrassed.

That’s OK. The 6-foot-3 Deppisch, who grew up in New England and went to Manhattan College, is more of a Boston Celtics fan anyway.

His favorite player of all-time is Larry Bird, which makes sense to Deppisch’s longtime three-on-three teammate, UC Irvine men’s tennis coach Mike Saunders.

“He’s an unbelievable basketball player,” Saunders said. “He’s like Larry Bird with a little more finesse and grace, I would say.”

Deppisch said he started out playing Horse with Saunders, who he calls “Colonel Saunders,” at the gym in the early 2000s. Then the Morris brothers, Steve and Darren, showed up to offer some two-on-two competition before the game expanded.

“We would play for a $20 Peet’s Coffee card,” Deppisch said. “We believe we won more than they did. They may not agree, but I think we did. That was our trophy.”

Steve Morris, who’s 6-foot-7, responded diplomatically: “I think history shows that you guys were very competitive.”

Morris, who played basketball at Corona del Mar High under the longtime late coach Jack Errion, remains the “commissioner” of the group — the guy who makes the phone calls and texts to the players to organize the games. He said he appreciates Deppisch’s fundamentals.

Kelley Crosby, another member of the three-on-three crew, has coined Deppisch with a nickname of “The Godfather.” He noted that Deppisch is semi-retired — until the game gets in a pinch and needs an extra body.

“Occasionally when somebody gets sick or rolls an ankle, they’ll yell upstairs, ‘Ralph, we need you,’” Crosby said. “It’s like he’s putting on his cape. Ralph will be up there on the treadmill. He’ll come down and throw in a little hook shot, bank it in on us, and everybody will be like, ‘Wow, he still has it.’

“It’s like the waters part, and here comes Moses, parting the red sea. He comes down on a cloud.”

Robert Morris, another CdM basketball alumnus who organized the program’s alumni tournament for years, called Deppisch a “total inspiration.”

“You can’t believe he’s 80, the things he does,” Morris said. “We played on Friday, he made 80% of his shots, including a left-hand hook that the 6-10 guy can’t stop.”

“It was one of my better days,” Deppisch, standing nearby, replied with a smile.

On this particular Tuesday morning, three days after his 80th birthday, a birthday cake was brought into the gym for Deppisch. It was 7 a.m., so that was mostly for Deppisch to take home. A box of doughnuts was a more popular option for the players.

In terms of the basketball, Deppisch dominated. Playing three games of pickup basketball with three different combinations of players, he won all of them.

“My game now is acceptable,” he said modestly. “I can hold my own. I give myself a soft ‘B.’ Like, I played the other day and I did OK. I did enough that they invited me back.”

To him, it’s the community that’s important. The Newport Beach Athletic Club has been family run for 55 years by John Bazacas, and now his son, Tom.

“It’s great to have an environment for these guys to all be friends and work out,” Tom Bazacas said.

Deppisch, who started playing basketball in the second grade, agrees. It’s a good place for him to conclude what he calls “my 8 to 80 run.”

“Everybody respects him,” Crosby said. “He’s just got a heart of gold, and he’s brought a lot of people together. He’s a very good man.”