Pickleball Beginnings
Why I Started to Play Pickleball
I was recently thinking about why I started playing pickleball. I laughed because a friend might get mad at me reading this because she wasn’t the one who encouraged me to come to play. She did reiterate, though, that she thought that I’d like the game since we had played tennis together for many years.
I saw someone who I hadn’t seen in a few years and after asking how he was doing after the loss of his wife. He told me that he had retired and was playing a lot of pickleball. He said that it was fun and it made him happy. He encouraged me to come to the indoor courts to try playing in 2017. I took him up on the offer and found that I did like playing it. There was something therapeutic about hitting that plastic ball with a paddle and there seemed to be some characters there playing, which would make it even more fun.
The idea of playing a paddle sport in a roller rink seemed funny to me. I had played racquetball and tennis indoors in courts designed for those sports. But when I walked into the rink and saw the brightly colored carpet and walls and a disco ball on the ceiling at the center of the room, I knew that this was my destiny of sorts. As our pro said, “It was our Xanadu.” This was going to be my new hangout. I felt a little old to “hangout” but I’d be getting exercise playing a fun game with friends and that was worth a lot to me.
It was a December morning, a week before Christmas and there were other players who had started playing the previous summer and who then joined in November when the rink opened for indoor play so I wasn’t too far behind everyone and I had those tennis skills. But I still felt a little intimidated. I remember going over and talking to a guy tying his shoes and talking about the game and he felt pretty much as I did. We both loved the game from the start.
I had lost a close friend a few years prior to beginning pickleball and had taken up road cycling. I had ridden a decade before that but had never owned a road bike. I loved the freedom of riding a bike but that wasn’t too pleasant in the winters of Pennsylvania. Playing pickleball inside with others was a godsend.
We played indoors for the next two years until the outdoor courts were built but I had played a few times outdoor at other courts. It felt almost like a different game at first, as I had to learn to adjust to the wind, the ball bounce and the playing surface. I’m still adjusting on some days!
To many, pickleball is a fun game. To me, it was more than that as I realized how much I missed playing a racquet sport. The torque of hitting a tennis ball had become too hard on my body and I had quit almost seven years prior to playing pickleball.
After six years of playing the game now, in my town and in a few different cities/towns and still looking forward to doing more of that, I can play daily in open play with my club. I helped to raise the money for the outdoor courts where people can enjoy playing daily. I also play in a hometown group of dinkers.
The York Dinkers, that hometown group, has players who range in age from thirties to sixties so there’s a thirty-year swing on the courts. I like swinging with the thirty-year-olds, as I like to say. That diversity of ages and people is some of the beauty of the game. I might not ever have met some of the people that I play with and against if I hadn’t met them on the pickleball court. There’s a fun social aspect about the sport since play is in closer proximity so we’ve eaten together, offered advice and networked on the courts
Now that travel has resumed and now that there are more options for pickleball across the world, I hope to play in a few different countries, too. If that doesn’t materialize, I always have a few other options for play and that is another beauty of the game. There are always players almost anywhere, waiting to play with you in this “pickleball movement” now. Please join us in play!
I was so inspired by playing pickleball that I wrote a book about pickleball before the pandemic began. I had published articles but had never written a book so I had a lot to learn. Due to Covid and family responsibilities, I set it aside for two years. After almost kissing some frogs, I signed with Third Coast Books, a hybrid publisher. I was impressed with their bios and after speaking with ian Gorman, the Associate Publishere of Third Coast Books and my first contact there. He has guided me through the edits and many steps in the publishing industry and “sent” Pam and Mario from their team to also assist me in my book cover design and my technology needs.