Students picking up pickleball
Pickleball is the newest sport to be introduced to Crestwood Secondary School’s athletics program.
It’s a mix of tennis, ping-pong (or table tennis) and badminton.
With a low net like tennis, paddles like ping-pong and a ball similar to a wiffle ball it’s a distinctly unique racquet sport that like the other three games it shares traits with can be deceptively hard.
Crestwood physical education teacher Wade Wiggins brought the sport to the school using an OFSAA Try A Sport grant, which aims to help introduce new sports to schools.
Pickleball is now being taught to Grade 9 and 10 students in physical education classes. For senior grades, intramurals are offered as well as a round robins at lunch.
Wiggins says he has seen success with the students and not just with the ones who have to learn it for physical education but with the intramurals as well.
The sport has caught on so much even teachers from other departments have tried it out, as well as the school’s vice-principal Tracy Armstrong.
Grade 12 student Trisa Johnson has been a driving force behind the sport and getting more students interested.
“When I heard the teachers talking about it doing a new sport at the school I though it would be great to get involved,” Johnson said.
“We have a lot of varsity sports but not a lot of club teams so its great to introduce students to sport with rules as easy as pickle ball that they can learn and just have fun with instead of just competing.”
For Johnson this is typical. She volunteers in the community frequently and is vice-president of the student council.
“It’s worked out pretty well considering the amount of other sports we have.” Johnson said.
Johnson’s friend and fellow Grade 12 student Holly Astrom who is the student council president and an avid sports player said, she’s been enjoying it and she thinks it’s cool that it’s not a sport a lot of people know about so people’s differences in ability aren’t as big as they would be in more competitive sport like badminton for instance.
Astrom and other fellow Grade 12 students in her leadership class were all taught the game early by Wiggins so they could teach the other students when they came to participate at lunch.
Among those taught was Grade 10 student Deane Freiter. Originally a badminton player, he began playing just a couple of days ago but has taken to it quite well saying, “I saw the posters up around the hall and went. They were short a couple of players so they just kinda threw me in there, but it was fun.”
Pickleball is often seen as a “old persons game” but not to Freiter who says he definitely doesn’t think of it like that with the agility people have to move to hit the ball.