If you haven’t heard, pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the United States.
The number of Americans playing pickleball increased from 4 million in 2021 to 13.6 million in 2023, and participation grew by 51.8% from 2022 to 2023.
The craze has impacted my home.
The first time I ever heard about the sport was when my wife, Wanda, told me she tried it at Williams Farms Recreation Center.
“I have a good friend, Priscilla, who I played tennis with, who invited me out to come play pickleball with her one day,” she said. “After a month of playing, I became addicted to it. ”
Wanda told me that a lot of skills from tennis transferred to pickleball.
“It’s just a smaller court, and you have to learn more pickleball strategies. But it was an easy transition,” she said. “It’s not about banging the ball hard. A lot of times, it’s just a small dink that can win a point. I love the game.”
Words such as “dink,” “drops” and the “kitchen” are heard around the pickleball court, and the latter has nothing to do with cooking.
I was kind of surprised how obsessed she became with the game because we both loved playing tennis.
Now, I can’t get her on a tennis court.
She is so hooked on pickleball that she plays nearly four times a week — on a bad knee.
Have I tried it? Yes, but I’ll talk more about that later.
I want to focus on the real pickleball players.
Pickleball is sweeping the nation — and my house. https://t.co/Exi5vg8pJR pic.twitter.com/6RTz5LSAhL
— Larry Rubama (@LHRubama) July 1, 2024
One of the persons I can blame for my wife’s addiction is Tony Jaume, the owner of 7 Cities Pickleball.
He, like my wife and I, played tennis.
He played at Granby High and one year of college. He gave it up after he realized that playing tennis in college was “another level.” He chose to focus on his studies.
One day, he was in a gym getting some shots up in basketball when he saw some people gathering around a net.
“I went over and asked the people what was the net for,” he said. “They said, ‘Come play. You’ll like this because you played tennis.’ So they showed me how to play the game, and it was fun.”
A former personal trainer, his business took a hit during COVID. He decided to get more into pickleball.
Five years later, Jaume is all-in.
“I’ve started three programs in the area and hopefully getting more people introduced to the game,” said Jaume, who gives lessons and does programs from Virginia Beach to Williamsburg and in parts of North Carolina.
He’s even started programs for veterans and for people who have autism.
He admits he is surprised how fast the game has grown.
“As much as I love the game and as great as I think it is, it’s surprising that it’s gotten as big as it has,” he said, “Even the paddle industry alone has grown. Before, it was a multi-million dollar industry. But now, it’s almost a billion-dollar industry.”
One of the things I realized about pickleball players is they have a special and tight community.
So close-knit, you better watch your words around them.
“It is a cult,” Jaume said with a chuckle. “I think if you say something about pickleball in a negative connotation, one of those people might jump on you.”
But seriously, the pickleball community is very friendly.
Ben Holtzclaw, 23, was a four-time conference tennis champion at Western Branch High.
He played club tennis at James Madison when a friend of his asked him to try pickleball. They ended up winning the tournament.
“I really started learning the game and really getting into it in January,” he said. “Now I play about two, three to four times a week.”
What he loves most about the game is the community aspect and the “inviting space.”
“It’s unlike any other sport that I’ve played. When you go and play tennis, if you and I were to hit around for an hour, we can’t talk to each other because we’re so far apart,” he said. “I play at Riverfront. When I went there, I didn’t know anybody. But now we have a community of people where we’re on first-name basis. I consider these people friends and we only met a month ago.”
Last weekend, I attended the 2nd Annual 24 Hours of Pickleball Tournament at Pickleball Virginia Beach (PVB).
Yes, people played pickleball for 24 hours in a row in temperatures that hovered around 100 degrees.
I spoke with Jim Aldrich, the owner of Pickleball Virginia Beach, about how the tournament got started.
He said he and his friend, Jack Singer, came up with the idea.
“We were sitting around one day talking about pickleball tournaments and we were watching the 24 hours of Le Mans,” Aldrich said. “And he said, ‘What if we do a 24 hours of pickleball?’ I was like, ‘All right.’ We invested $10,000 of our own money and held the first ever in the world 24-hour pickleball tournament last year.”
The tournament had players from beginners to advanced levels. It attracted players from as far as California, but most players came from New York, Delaware, Tennessee, Texas, California, South Carolina and North Carolina.
Players camped out in tents or slept in RVs to participate in the 24-hour tournament.
Kieran Moriarty, 56, and his wife, Michele, drove to Virginia Beach from Fripp Island, which is located off the coast of Beaufort County, South Carolina.
“We play pickleball there. And our leader, Roger Stern, found this tournament and said, ‘This will be fun, let’s go do this,” he said. “We just love playing pickleball. We thought it would be a fun time. It’s something we can talk about for a long time … that we played for 24 hours.”
Moriarty has been playing for four years.
“I just like trying to get better, trying to always improve,” he said. “Even when you lose, if you play well and you play against somebody who is better than you, you’re like, ‘I did a good job.’ I’m just trying to constantly improve. It’s a great sport.”
Aldrich, 64, turned the former tennis facility into a growing pickleball facility that has more than 700 members. He currently has 26 courts, but will add 18 more soon.
“We’ll be the largest pickleball facility on the East Coast,” he said. “And I have four people on every court almost every single day, all day. That’s a lot of people having fun playing this sport.”
Aldrich introduced the sport to students at Seatack Elementary, who now have a pickleball club. During the school year, the club met after school twice a week. It helps that Seatack is next-door to Pickleball Virginia Beach.
Aldrich added that for the first time, Major League Pickleball and the Professional Pickleball Association tour will be coming to Virginia Beach this fall.
“We call it the best drug you can have because you get addicted to this sport,” said Aldrich, who has been playing for six years. “You walk on this court and play it one time, and you go, ‘Oh my gosh, I’m addicted. I mean, look out. It’s 100 degrees and they’re out here playing for 24 hours.”
Elaine Webb, 73, was introduced to the game through her son.
“My son said, ‘Mom, have you ever played pickleball?’ I said, ‘Pickleball? Who would ever play that?’ ” said Webb, who plays in Jaume’s open play at Old Dominion University. “Then I went to the Y and they wanted to start pickleball. So I joined.”
She was hooked. She started playing in tournaments in Suffolk.
“And I took first place. And when I did, the gift was lessons with Tony,” she said about Jaume. “And I’ve been taking lessons with Tony ever since.”
She said pickleball has helped her with her mobility and stamina.
“In school, I never played sports. So, this was my first sport that I’ve played,” she said. “I want to keep playing as long as I can.”
Joe Giovinozzo, 76, was a mailman for 35 years. He played ping pong, but his son encouraged him to try pickleball.
He’s glad he did. Now, he’s been playing for four years.
“I play an average of two to three hours every day except Sunday,” he said. “The thing I like about it is I’ve never really run into a bad person playing pickleball, and I’m pretty sarcastic.”
Morgan Combs, who turns 31 in July, was introduced to the sport in January through her husband, Sean.
“I was struggling to find exercise that I enjoyed. I kind of stumbled upon pickleball, and it’s been amazing,” she said. “I’ve never not smiled when I’ve played pickleball.”
Combs had a double lung transplant 10 years ago because of cystic fibrosis, which caused her lungs to fail. She’s also looking to get a kidney transplant. But pickleball has helped her with exercise.
“I have free range to do whatever I want, but I definitely struggle finding that exercise portion,” said Combs, who admits to being more fatigued. “My body is not equipped to do a lot of things just because I’ve been on so many medications for so many years, and they’ve been damaging to my body and other organs. But pickleball has been great for me and it gives me that joy. If I didn’t have pickleball, I’d probably be doing nothing.
“I talk about pickleball all the time. People probably get tired of me now,” she said giggling. “I wake up excited to exercise now. I wake up excited to play pickleball and do something with my husband that’s active.”
Which brings me back to me and my wife, who has been successful in it. She’s played in four tournaments and won two, including the Veterans Day Tournament in 2023 at PVB.
She asked me to play, and I tried it. I enjoyed it, the community, and it was a great workout.
But after playing just three times, she signed us up for a league.
Bad idea: we lost every game. Anyone who knows me knows I’m very competitive.
What bothered me more was the people we played with in the league were so nice — even while they beat our butts.
But to save my marriage, I’ve retired.
I’ll stick to golf and softball, and leave pickleball to her and millions of others.
Larry Rubama, 757-575-6449, larry.rubama@pilotonline.com
