Balls are bouncing again at the old tennis courts by Academy Lane. But instead of tennis rackets, players are sporting Wiffle balls and wooden ping-pong paddles.
The game is called pickleball. It has 2.8 million players nationwide, according to the United States of America Pickleball Association (USAPA), and was labeled the “fastest growing sport” in the United States in 2015 by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. In central Florida, the game has become so popular that fans have labeled it the “pickleball capital of the world.”
A pickleball court is a third the size of a tennis court with a 34-inch net, 2 inches shorter than a tennis net. Paddles are generally made of wood, graphite, or some composite material, and the perforated plastic balls are made of a thicker plastic than a regular Wiffle ball. The rules are also similar to tennis.
Drew Wathey, director of media relations for USAPA, said the game is most popular among states with large retirement populations, like California, Florida, Arizona, Texas, and Georgia. He added that Michigan is also a “hotbed” for the sport, as he noticed while visiting Detroit for a pickleball junior olympics.
“When I was up there last year it seemed like there was a lot of new growth as far as transforming tennis courts into pickleball courts, or new pickleball courts being built,” he said.
Ken Cole, secretary treasurer for the Hillsdale College Independence Foundation, and his wife Brenda, initiated the $8,000 renovation process for the college’s two new pickleball courts, which were completed by the end of June. He and his wife personally funded 15 percent of the project, while the Exchange Club, a local service club that focuses on preventing child abuse and funds various organizations in the Hillsdale area, of which Cole is a member, funded the other 85 percent. The club holds a pickleball clinic every Monday night at 6 p.m., open to all ages, and the Roche Sports Complex also provides wooden paddles and balls that are available for students or community members to use with their student IDs or membership cards.
According to the USAPA website, the game was founded in the summer of 1965 when Joel Pritchard, a Washington state congressman, along with businessman Bill Bell, and another friend, Barney McCallum, were looking for badminton equipment at Pritchard’s home and decided to improvise with ping-pong paddles and a Wiffle ball.
Pickleball fans disagree over where the sport got its name. According to the USAPA website, McCallum said it was named after the Pritchards’ cocker spaniel, “Pickles,” which is the widely-circulated account, but Pritchard’s wife, Joan, said she started calling it pickleball because the combination of sports in the game reminded her of how the “pickle boat” in crew always takes the leftover players from the other boats.
Cole and his wife first encountered the game while spending time at a retirement resort in Okeechobee, Florida. He said that over the course of eight years, the resort’s tennis courts were eventually all converted to pickleball courts.
Cole said he expects the game will become more popular, and wants to expose pickleball more to the community.
“It’s just a lot of fun,” Cole said. “It’s just easier than playing on a tennis court.”
The college may eventually replace the pickleball courts with a turf building, or some other enterprise, according to Chief Administrative Officer Rich Péwé. Although Péwé approved the pickleball courts, he said the college built the newer tennis courts next to the Biermann Athletic Center with the intention of building something in place of the older courts.
Mike Venturini, former Exchange Club president and current member, said the new courts are the first outdoor pickleball courts in Hillsdale County, and he said he thinks the county will problem form a pickleball league in the next year or so.
“You can play for half hour and work up a good sweat whether you know what you’re doing or not,” he said.
Venturini said for the time being he wants to get more of the community and college students involved.
“I’ve been to the clinics twice, and it’s just plain fun.”
