A really big dill: Pickleball sees national and local success

By Courtney Suber features@kykernel.com

The fastest-growing sport in America isn’t one played in stadiums or broadcast to millions of homes across the country.

This sport, Pickleball, is seeing spiking popularity at a local, national and global level, its small-scale courts and inviting energy drawing in heaps of new participants.

Invented in 1965 by three dads aiming to alleviate their children’s summer boredom, pickleball has since then evolved far beyond a family project.

Often described as similar to tennis by participants, pickleball is characterized by the use of paddles and a lightweight wiffle ball. The sport is played by two to four players who hit the ball back and forth with the paddles. There is a net in the middle which separates players, and they stand in boxes that designate their position on the court.

One of the key differences between tennis and pickleball, though, is the scoring system.

“In pickleball, the scoring is a lot closer to badminton or maybe ping pong where you’re just scoring zero, one, two, three, four,” said Brandon Mackie, co-founder of national pickleball platform Pickleheads.

The once niche sport has seen an extreme boom in participants in recent years thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic, with individuals living in isolation turning to pickleball to stay active and social.

“I think one reason pickleball grew so quickly during that time is that it can be played outdoors with proper social distancing. It be - came one of the few social things that we could still safely do with a pandemic going on,” said Dan Ewing, president of the Kentucky Pickleball Association.

The sport has also been praised for its creation of friendship and social connections.

“I’m starting phase retirement. I need more community, and you gotta talk when you play pickleball and hang out with people. Playing sports is an amazing social connection as well as an amazing form of exercise,” said Dan Stone, the faculty advisor to the UK Pickleball Club.

Founded by Conor Day and Tamm Omar, the UK Pickleball Club is home to players at the uni - versity. The club organizes casual pickleball play, as well as tournaments against other schools.

While the sport shot to popularity during quarantine, it has not faltered since then in any manner. With such a large increase in players organizations have been created to report on pickleball events, connect players, and engage new players.

Addressing the large increase in pickleball players nationwide, online platforms like Mackie’s Pickleheads — founded last year — help to schedule games between local players, map out playable courts and keep players in the loop of future happenings.

“Our system has almost ev - ery court in the country. We have a page for it and on there you can see the open play times, when you could also come out and play, and you can also see in some cases tournament information,” Mackie said of Pickleheads.

Ewing expressed excitement about pickleball’s boost in participants across the Bluegrass.

“The growth of pickleball over the last couple years has been nothing short of amazing. A few years ago, we had maybe 200 players in Lexington. I think that number has doubled every year since COVID hit,” Ewing said.

According to Pickleheads, Kentucky has over 100 functioning courts in the state. This makes it the 34th state where pickleball is played the most.

Across the Commonwealth, the cities where pickleball is the most popular include Louisville with 20 courts, Lexington with 13 courts and Owensboro with 10 courts.

UK’s Spindletop Hall, a country club in Lexington, has adopted pickleball into its athletics amenities roster.

“We promote [pickleball] by having people join, take a beginner clinic and I make all the beginner clinics free. We provide the paddles, we provide the balls,” said Jack Ebel, the director of outdoor facilities and recreation at Spindletop.

Lexington’s pickleball Facebook group now has over 1,300 members, and with several ways to join in on the sport’s international phenomenon in the region’s active community, pickleball’s growth is showing no sign of slowing down.

“I’m thrilled to see it grow,” Ewing said.