A Fresh Perspective: Why Pickleball?

from bmonthly March 2020

Meet Your Writer: Kay Little

Why Pickleball?

Little-Known Sport Has Seen A Recent Surge in Popularity

by Brent Taylor

Here is a question folks have been asking me a lot lately. Why do I play pickleball? And why has there been such a surge in popularity across the nation? Thinking about this prompted me to ask some of my Bartlesville friends. Here is what they said: “Pickleball has changed my life for the better. My endorphin count goes through the roof, I laugh a lot, it’s a friend generator, a mind and body workout, good for the reflexes, and overall fun!!! There are really cute clothes too.” — Marva Stroman “It's fun learning to play, fun improving, and so many fun people! Pickleball has something for everyone. Did I mention that it is fun?” — Marcia Black “I have many new friends who instantly bond through the game as we encourage and laugh with one another ... all while vigorously trying to win that next point.” — Jim Swezey “I absolutely LOVE the simplicity of the game. Pickleball allows players of all ages and athletic abilities to play together based purely on skill. And I have made more friends through pickleball than from any other sport I have played. Furthermore, pickleball players have a great attitude. Even after losing a point, it is not uncommon to hear the loser yelling “great shot” to their opponent. As the USAPA Ambassador for Bartlesville, I look forward to growing pickleball in the Bartlesville area by exposing it to as many people as possible, from educating our youth in elementary schools to the elderly in assisted living. The potential for this fastgrowing sport excites me!” — Kumar Krishnan My friends from the Bartlesville Pickleball Club have highlighted the key to the popularity of the sport. Pickleball is a new way to talk across the fence to neighbors in an age that has lost the art of easy conversation. I am a social introvert, often masking my guttural instincts to scream or tackle someone when I play. Tackling isn’t allowed in pickleball. So you learn to get along.

But, the difficulty for me is the hellos and hugs, the sharing of life and stories, and a feeling that we are even closer than six degrees of separation. Pickleball circumvents the social rule that says we are all just six handshakes away from knowing everyone in the universe. You are indeed a friend of a friend in pickleball, and the logarithmic social distance seems truncated to the point that you are instantly neighbors visiting over your backyard fence about children, paddles, and sore knees.

Pickleball also reminds me of neighborhood backyards when I was a kid. Pickleball is, after all, at its heart, a backyard sport. It was invented near Seattle by three dads whose kids were bored. Some say the name pickleball derived from the inventor families’ cocker spaniel named Pickles, who chased the ball and ran away with it. Pickleball is more refined today. But it still feels backyard. And just like our old backyards, the fences cannot contain us. My pickleball backyard isn’t that much different from my childhood backyard. That backyard was evocative and gritty. We

could be whomever we wanted to be … Michael Jordan, Peyton Manning, Mia Hamm … and with Levi’s streaked with grass stains and sweat illuminating our faces like sudden glory, we were. The thrill of victory and agony of defeat somersaulting off a ski jump on the Wide Wide World of Sports rang true in our backyard. Tackle football without helmets, bats cracking baseballs that landed in the Johnson’s daffodils. The thrill of victory was a wiffle ball homer over the fence into the neighbors yard and the agony of defeat was realizing their bulldog had your ball in his mouth. You are Pele as you bicycle kick a soccer ball between fence posts topped with Pepsi cans and you land square on your coccyx. We were physically and sociologically shaped on freshly cut lawns with clothes line goal posts and a sideline fence making out of bounds calls indisputable. Mom called you to dinner but hunger was no match against the guttural cry of competition. So you ignore the dinner bell because you are on the 50-yard-line with the sun going down, drawing a hook and ladder play in the dirt which culminates in a last second touchdown. Your buddies carry you off the field and the celebration echoes through the suburban woods. Who could possibly think of food in moments like those?

This is why we play pickleball, even as our sacrum throbs; this is why we won’t come in for dinner, because we are having too much fun. The cries of competition and voices of friendship float in the air like moths swirling around a lit candle. We have returned like spawning salmon to the sacred space of our backyards.