Parents weekend pickleball tournament in October 2025
Courtesy | Nathan Furness

Pickleball club is the new swing dance club, according to senior Nathan Furness.

“There’s guys and girls out there playing together,” Furness, the president of the club, said. “It’s a great place to meet people. I think we had three couples come out of it last year.”

The pickleball club, formerly only a recreational club, became an official club sport this year and will compete against other schools in the Dynamic University Pickleball Rating Collegiate League and the National Collegiate Pickleball Association. Its first tournament will be Sept. 19 in Grand Rapids at Calvin College, which is hosting the event for several Michigan teams.

Furness founded the club his sophomore year with now-senior Josh Mistry, but he was not initially interested in adding a competitive level to the club. 

“Pickleball’s not that niche anymore, but it’s still niche at the pro level. So I looked up pro pickleball,” Furness said. “There’s a lot of differences there, so I started actually playing the way that the game was meant to be played and then got addicted.”

Furness said since pickleball has remained on the club level rather than the varsity level for all colleges, Hillsdale’s club can play the top team at any school. 

“We can compete against the top team at any given school, whereas the club soccer team, they’re not playing Michigan’s actual D1 soccer team,” Furness said. 

The club meets every Wednesday and Friday from 4–6 p.m. at the pickleball courts, located next to the sports complex and shared with the Hillsdale community. The club provides paddles, balls, and water. Furness said the recreational side of the club has been growing quickly, with more than 100 signups at The Source and around 350 people in the GroupMe. 

“Unfortunately, we have four pickleball courts, and so on Wednesday, we had our first pickle meeting, and we had probably 80 people there,” Furness said. “We need new courts very badly.”

Pickleball splits into teams of two, with men’s and women’s doubles, but the teams can be mixed depending on the tournament. Furness said the club is looking for more women players specifically.

“Pickleball is the greatest sport on the earth right now,” Furness said. “As I became more competitive, there’s other students who were also becoming more competitive and wanted to compete at higher levels.”

While recreational sporting clubs go to the Student Federation for funding, club sports receive $2,000 per year from the college and fundraise everything else.

“The process of going from a regular club to an intercollegiate club is really as simple as talking to me and making sure that they’re in the right kind of league, that they have enough interest, and that they have some sort of fundraising plan,” Ryan Perkins ’22, director of Campus Rec and club sports, said.

According to Perkins, Hillsdale has had baseball, lacrosse, fencing, and pickleball become intercollegiate in the past year and a half.

“If they go into playoffs, go to a regional tournament, nationals tournament, the college pays for all of those expenses, which is often a really big help to the team as well,” Perkins said. 

Less than two weeks after arriving on campus, freshmen Ezekiel Wagner and Derek Su are now members of the club’s executive board and planning to compete in the Calvin College tournament. Su started playing two and a half years ago, while Wagner has five to six years under his belt.

Wagner estimates he spends two hours every other day at the courts and one hour a week sending fundraising emails.

“I was already expecting to at least be in some part involved with the pickleball club and continue playing, probably not to the extent that I’ve softly committed myself already, which is scary to think about,” Wagner said.

Su said the low cost and skill requirements, the ease of becoming competitive, and the community have kept people coming back for pickleball.

“People love the sports they can be good at,” Su said. “Pickleball is very easy to become good at, which makes people want to keep playing.”

Though the club is now entering tournaments at the more competitive club sport level, Furness is eager to keep the recreational side. 

“We’re still super excited about people of all skill levels coming out and having fun and meeting people,” he said.