wr it e n e x t d oor with columnist Colleen D’Angelo
In a Pickle
Just one more game – please!
I have a confession. I am truly addicted to pickleball. My husband jokes that he has lost me to a cucumber soaked in vinegar and spices. The truth is pretty basic: pickleball is fun and the people who play it are even more fun. It’s a natural mood booster, easy to learn, tough to master and impossible to stop. It may seem like the sport came out of nowhere, but pickleball was actually invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Good friends Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum tried to devise a game to keep their bored children occupied. They used whatever they had on hand including paddleball paddles, badminton racquets and table tennis paddles, as well as a tall badminton net. At some point, they lowered the net so they could hit the ball harder and shaped new paddles out of scrap plywood. Finding the perfect ball was a struggle, but the Wiffle ball did a decent job except that it split into pieces too easily. Eventually the Cosum Fun Ball hit the scene and the adults on Bainbridge Island became so obsessed with the game that the kids couldn’t get any court time. The game was fast and fun but easy enough for the entire family to play. At first, there were no official rules, but gradually the friends committed to formalizing the game and making it a real competitive sport. They combined elements of tennis, badminton and table tennis to create a balanced, neutral game for all play-
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ers. One story is that this combination of sports reminded Joel Pritchard of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen are chosen from the leftovers of other boats, and they started calling this new game, “pickle.” The story that garners more attention is that the Pritchards had a cockapoo named Pickles that chased and hid the ball when they played. The first pickleball tournament was played in 1976 in Tukwila,Washington, and the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA) was formed in 1984 to help grow the game at a national level. The first official paddle and rule book also debuted in 1984, with pickleball being played in every state by 1990. Today there are more than 4.2 million players across the U.S., up 21.3 percent from 2019, according to the USAPA, and
the number keeps growing by dinks and lobs (a little pickleball humor ). Fifty-five years after the “pickle seed” was planted, pickleball has developed into the fastest growing sport in the U.S. for many of the same reasons it was invented. I asked a group of dedicated Dublin players what they liked about the sport and this is what they said: • It is easy to learn so the very first time you step onto the court, you can have fun and enjoy the game. • It’s great for families of all ages and a fun couples sport. • It isn’t too hard on the body so you can continue to play as you age. • It improves your reflexes, balance and range of motion. • It is athletic, strategic and absolutely addicting!
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