Booming Voice: in a pickle

By Bill Levine

At my weekly live-ball tennis doubles session, featuring continuous ball-hitting sans serving, the younger, athletic player said he had no interest in pickleball. This made sense to me, since live-ball sessions at our Pompano, Florida, tennis center are a.k.a., cardio-tennis.

Pickleball is down-sized tennis, tailored for seniors of my age, 71, and for avid ping-pongers who want to bust out of their basement-table milieu. I, like the younger athletic live-ball player, am a tennis guy.

That said, in the interest of exploring the hottest sports craze since disc golf, I took a couple of pickleball lessons at the center during last year’s snowbird season. The young, enthusiastic instructor spent a lot of time on the rules and the positioning (more choreographed than tennis). Even in intro tennis lessons, racquet control is emphasized.

During the first lesson, the pickleball pro said I had good hand-eye coordination, which gave me the unearned confidence to pick up real experience at Pompano’s pickleball courts.

South Florida is a pickleball haven, so Pompano has a 12-court complex in its park. The courts are just too busy in the morning, appearing from a distance as a human beehive. I thus waited until the afternoon, when the heat would lessen the crowd, so perhaps I could get into a game.

After getting antsy on a bench, a pickleballer finally asked if I wanted to play singles. I agreed, and this gentleman showed me two consequences of single play: It is decent exercise and very humbling. I lost three games 11-0, 11-1, and 11-4.

The hard truth after this match was that pickleball requires more skill than I thought. As a tennis player, I can occasionally hit strategic put-away shots, but with pickleball I realized I had nothing resembling a killer shot. But lack of even pickleball mediocrity was not among the main reasons I decided to continue to concentrate on tennis.

I had a tennis fever during the racquet boom period of the late 1970s. My roommate and I, living in Boston, parlayed the aptly named Econo-tennis into a weekly, indoor doubles match with friends, all for $2 or $3 per person.

In the hotter weather, we migrated to the highly prized lighted outdoor courts. Taking the courts on a summer’s night felt like a table secured at a trendy restaurant. As the tennis fad faded in interest, so did the interest of our group of tennis hackers. For me, it was then onto golf.

From around age 30 to my late 50s, I played mildly enthusiastic golf. I never played it during prime weekend time and never more than nine holes per week, from May to August, always with friends. My favorite hole was the 10th because we finished strong with beer and burgers.

As time went on, my interest faded, mostly because it seemed that golf please see piCKLE on facing page

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