Bill Gates: "I’m a Pickler!"

 

JUST DINK IT

Fifty years ago, I started playing this little-known sport with a funny name. Now, it’s all the rage.

One of my favorite pastimes is now America's fastest-growing sport. 

I’ve been a “Pickler,” as people obsessed with the game like me are known, for more than 50 years.

And if you and your family are bored and looking for something to do this summer, I encourage you to become one too.

Boredom was what got this sport started in 1965.

Three dads living on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, came home one summer evening to find their children complaining that there was nothing for them to do. So, they found a net, a Wiffle ball, some ping-pong paddles, and created a game on an old badminton court that the entire family could play together.

It was a hit.

Over the next year, the three friends worked together to develop a set of rules, formalize the court layout, and introduce a larger plywood paddle that was good for striking the ball. And they decided to call it pickleball. (The name’s origins remain a matter of debate. Some believe it was named after a dog. Others say it’s a reference to a “pickle boat,” a thrown together boat made from the leftover rowers in crew races. I don’t know. I prefer to just play the game and stay out of the fray.)

Meanwhile, word slowly spread in Seattle of this odd new pastime.

My dad was friends with the game’s inventors, Joel Pritchard, a state legislator and later Washington’s lieutenant governor, Barney McCallum, and Bill Bell. He learned about their creation and by the late 1960s, he got inspired to build a pickleball court at our house. I’ve been playing ever since. (Read More)

Parade Magazine: What's All the Racket About Pickleball? Everything You Need to Know About the Growing Sport

Pickleball. Have you heard of it? It’s that incredibly popular tennis-and-Ping-Pong hybrid that everyone’s playing, from Ellen DeGeneres (“I’m obsessed with it”) to most of the residents of Naples, Florida, it seems. (One center with 60 courts calls itself “the Pickleball Capital of the World.”)

As if pickleball weren’t hot enough already, here’s something else to add to the buzz. America’s bounciest, most-talked-about game is also really good for rhyming.

So says Penn Holderness, co-creator with his wife, Kim, of a viral rap video called “the Pickleball Song.” The Holdernesses recently achieved fame as the winners of The Amazing Race on CBS. But before that they were simply a hilarious pair of YouTubers who mined their marriage and family life for comedy gold and a billion views.  Read More

Podcast: Pickleball Gaining Popularity One Dink at a Time

Pickleball Pros: JW Johnson, 19 (right) and Dylan Frazier, 20

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Listen: Podcast -  Pickleball Gaining Popularity One Dink at a Time

If you overheard someone shout, “nice dink in the kitchen!” you probably just walked by a pickleball court. Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in the United States, is taking over park and rec centers all over California as players clamor for more court time. Invented in 1965 by a Washington state congressman and his friend to entertain their bored kids, pickleball’s popularity took off during the pandemic, with an almost 40% increase in players. Across the country over four million people are playing pickleball, and its enthusiasts have formed a variety of professional organizations, leagues and tournaments with an eye to getting certified as an Olympic sport. We’ll look at how and why pickleball has become an American obsession. Have you picked up a paddle?

Guests:

• John Walters, sportswriter, Sports Illustrated; adjunct professor of Sports Media, Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication. Walters wrote the Sports Illustrated cover story about pickleball "Barbarians in the Kitchen"
• Rachel Simon, author, "Pickleball for All: Everything But the 'Kitchen' Sink" which comes out on August 30
• Jordan Brave Briones, pickleball professional and instructor; co-founder, Primetime Pickleball; creator, pickleball YouTube instruction channel: @brionespickleball.

How to Play Pickleball (THE BASICS)

 

Contents 0:00 Keep It Simple 0:10 Sections of the Court 0:18 Object of the game 0:23 Start a Point 0:40 Serve & Return Basics 0:55 2 Bounce Rule 1:13 Volleys & The Kitchen 1:29 Mistakes & Receiving Points 1:47 Keeping Track of Score (Singles) 2:08 Keeping Track of Score (Doubles) 2:51 Go Dominate!

The New Yorker: Can Pickleball Save America?

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Pickleball blurs the lines between sport and hobby, celebrity and mortal. Stars and athletes play (including Michael Phelps and Leonardo DiCaprio), and so do grandparents and children. Now a burgeoning professional scene is rocking the picklesphere. 

As in politics, a few famous families dominate pickleball, the fastest-growing sport in America. One is the Johnsons, of Florida. In January, on a breezy afternoon in Boca Raton, J. W. Johnson, a strapping nineteen-year-old with short brown bangs and a leather necklace, took to the court for a semifinal match at a tournament. Johnson is taciturn, with an often impenetrable expression. 

He was seeded second in the tournament; his opponent, Zane Navratil, a twenty-six-year-old former C.P.A. from Wisconsin, was seeded first. Pickleball, a tennis-like sport played on a smaller court, places a gentle strain on the body, and both men had the oxygenated flush of a long day of exercise. 

They began by dinking—softly bouncing the ball back and forth—before Navratil, with gazelle-like grace, executed two snazzy moves at once: an Erne (which involved a flying leap) and a body shot (which involved hitting Johnson in the gut). He chuckled with contentment. Then, as a storm front moved in, the tide began to turn. “Wow, what an inside-out dink there from J. W. Johnson!” a commentator at a nearby media booth said. Johnson, jaw slack with concentration, took control. (Read More)