One of the early players in the county, Kimberly Chandler of the Albertville area, teams up with Dan Lueker of Arab for Saturday Pickleball at the Guntersville Rec Center just prior to its shutting down as a coronavirus safety precaution.
Playing Pickleball Story and photos By David Moore
S
teve Douglas did not bring pickles when he moved from Atlanta to Warrenton in 2006. He did, however, bring a desire to play pickleball. Although it was a fast-growing sport, as far as he knows there was nowhere in Marshall County to play, and no one to play it with. For those who still don’t know, the game of pickleball was concocted from elements of tennis, badminton, racquetball and ping-pong with a twist of Wiffle ball tossed in for good measure. It’s played indoors or out on a badminton-sized court using a modified tennis net over which you swat a plastic ball with holes in it using 46
In case you were wondering, it’s a fun
concoction of tennis, badminton, racquetball
and ping-pong... with a twist of Wiffle ball tossed in
what appear to be oversized, squared-away ping-pong paddles. Folks play for some combination of fun, the rush of competition or because it’s a sneaky way to be active without dreading exercise. As Steve talks about his favorite game, 20 or so people whacked the bright yellow, Wiffle-like balls back and forth inside the Guntersville Parks and Recreation Center in the days before COVID-19 exploded. Now 76, he first heard about pickleball at The Villages, a 20 square-mile, planned development for those 55 and older in Central Florida. Among the amenities are some 120 pickleball courts. “I was a racquetball player and was just totally impressed with the game,” Steve says.
AUGUST | SEPTEMBER | OCTOBER 2020
Even so, it took him a while to get around to playing pickleball. He was still young enough to enjoy racquetball with his friends. But in early 2014, Steve recruited a racquetball buddy to join him in pickleball, Trudy Chaille, then of Guntersville. They got permission to tape off a court on the general-purpose tiled floor at the Guntersville rec center.
D
espite pickleball’s growing interest nationwide, no one else locally showed any interest. Besides, Steve says, the tiled floors at the rec centers did not work well with the balls of that day. Still itching to play, Steve took matters into his own hands and built a pickleball court in his driveway at home.
