San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
HOW WE DISCOVERED A SPORT AND BECAME COMPETITIVE AT IT
You are never too old or young for pickleball. We watched a 4-year-old repeatedly hit many balls back to her mother before missing one. At 88 (Bev) and 94 (Earl), we play and teach pickleball twice a week at Covenant Living at Mount Miguel, where we live. Pickleball is a sport for all ages and for families.
Our love of pickleball started about 12 years ago. We played competitive tennis for 60 years, achieving high national rankings. Bev’s tennis partner offered to teach us pickleball. We quickly learned two important things. The pickleball does not bounce much, so you must watch the pickleball hit your paddle each time, or you miss it totally. The second thing is to keep your paddle in front of you to protect yourself. Getting hit does not hurt, but it gets your attention.
That day, we discovered that pickleball is a lot more fun than tennis because of the nonstop action. The next morning, we went to the pickleball courts. Players welcomed us and loaned us paddles. When a game was finished, the losers came off the court and the winners would split up. Two people waiting joined the winners to play a game. This system gives everyone the opportunity to play with lots of people. We quickly became hooked on this new sport. We found pickleball improved our tennis because it absolutely requires watching every ball hit the paddle.
Very soon we started entering local tournaments, then citywide and senior tournaments, then national competitions. We could not believe how fast we were improving. Soon we started winning medals at these tournaments. Within about a year, we were winning mostly silver and gold medals.
Here is a little history of how pickleball spread from the start on Bainbridge Island near Seattle. A group of friends from various parts of the U.S., some from the northwest part of Phoenix, spent their summers on Bainbridge Island in the 1960s. They played badminton on a court located in one of their backyards. One day in 1965, they decided to drop the badminton net to about waist level and they started hitting a perforated plastic ball with ping pong paddles. That was the very first game of pickleball.
By 1976, an athletic club in Tukwila, Wash., was hosting the first known pickleball tournament, and by 1990, pickleball was being played in all 50
states. There was huge interest in this new sport in Phoenix, where we used to live, so the developer of several retirement villages put in some pickleball courts. More players resulted in more new courts and finally pickleball tournaments. Soon, 20 pickleball courts were built at a new development, where the USA Pickleball Association held the first national pickleball tournament in 2009. Then, a developer in Casa Grande, Arizona, built 32 pickleball courts, including four sunken ones, and the national tournament was moved to Casa Grande.
Pickleball players from all over the nation traveled to play in this national tournament in Casa Grande. A few years ago, the famous tennis center in Indian Wells built about 40 pickleball courts and the national pickleball tournament was moved there. Most major cities have already built and are building more pickleball courts. One developer in Florida built 65 pickleball courts and is currently adding more. At the U.S. Open Tennis Center in New York, officials are building approximately 40 pickleball courts with plans to host a major pickleball tournament.
We could not believe how far San Diego was behind in available pickleball courts when we moved from Phoenix to Spring Valley four years ago. When neighbors in our retirement village discovered we had won gold medals in national pickleball tournaments, they asked us to teach the residents. Twice each week, we play with and teach this fun new game to the residents. We have taught over 70 people to play. This includes teaching their children and grandchildren, who also love it.
A few courts are being built in San Diego, and some tennis courts are being converted to pickleball courts. However, this is not happening fast enough because there is almost no vacant land. San Diego does have lots of park and exhibit areas as possible sites like in Balboa Park and by Mission Bay. Also, there is lots of federal land where use permits could be negotiated. Where there is a will, most often there is a way. Hope to see you on the pickleball court soon.