Passion for Pickleball

Bob Piersanti of Springfield gets ready for a return on the indoor courts at HCC.
Yes, pickle is spelled backwards on his shirt.
PRIME photo by Dave Roback

Court fever catches on in Western Mass.

By Debbie Gardner
dgardner@thereminder.com

It’s been the most attended event at the Massachusetts Senior Games for the past six years and such a big hit at The Villages in Florida that the senior living community has 114 courts available. The multigenerational appeal means it also became the hottest court sport among 27-to-30-year-old Gen Z-ers in Boston this year.

With a conservative estimate of 2 million enthusiasts in the U.S. according to the website upstreetpickleball.com, there’s no question that pickleball is the sport of the 21st century. And it’s no wonder the sport has exploded in the past six years. It’s fast – most games last 15 to 20 minutes, it doesn’t require much equipment – just a good pair of sneakers, a paddle and a ball – and it’s not complicated.

“You can learn pickleball in an hour and be playing in an hour,” certified instructor of racquet sports and Holyoke Community College (HCC) alumnae Kelly Canniff told Prime during a tour of the recently-installed indoor pickleball courts at HCC’s David M. Bartley Center for Athletics & Recreation.

With the growth of local outdoor – and indoor – pickleball courts, pickleball meetup groups and even apps that let you know what’s open for play, it’s clear Western Massachusetts has caught pickleball fever. Prime checked in with some new – and longtime – local players to take a pulse on this latest sports craze.

Newbies catch the bug fast

Western Mass natives James “Jim” and Jamie Gil discovered pickleball in the late fall, purchasing a rudimentary pickleball set of wooden paddles and an outdoor ball at TJMaxx, and immediately were hooked.

“We started playing in October, we’re newbies and we were trying to get out every Sunday,” said Jamie, who added that their 24-year-old son, Peter, had introduced them to the game. Peter, she said, has been playing regularly with a group of friends for a while.

“The first time we played Peter took us over to the Agawam courts at Borgatti Field” and showed them the basics, Jamie explained. “The first few times we played we really didn’t know anything about the rules, but we wanted to get out there and a get a feel for it.”

Jim said the pickleball community is a very friendly lot, “when they find out you are a beginner [often other couples] will offer to split up and play doubles so you can learn the rules,” which, he admitted, can be a bit confusing when you first start out.

“The court is the size of a badminton court, supposably pickleball is a combination of tennis, badminton and ping pong,” Jim explained. “The rule where you can only score if you are serving, that’s part of the ping pong rules, the other rules are tennis related; when you serve, you serve on one side [of the court] and then go to the other side and serve [like tennis].

“Also, you always have to serve the ball underhand,” he continued. “The ball has to drop on the paddle and be hit over the net underhand, or you drop it and let it bounce and hit it.” Points must be said out loud when playing doubles and are cited like tennis games – “2 serving 3,” he added.

Jamie called the fast-paced game “a great workout,” a fact supported by information in Wikipedia, which states a 160-pound adult can burn from 250 to 350 calories in 30 minutes of play, depending on the intensity.

And, as Jim pointed out, the investment to get started playing such a fun sport is minimal. “It’s not like golf where you need designer clothes, you just need shorts, a T-shirt, a decent pair of sneakers and a paddle, maybe a sweatband.” Their first investment in paddles was about $15, Jim remarked, but they’ve already “gone online and got some fiberglass paddles, which are lighter and have better grips. We paid $40 for two paddles, two balls and towels.”

It’s an easy swap for former athletes

“I was looking for something to play to burn off stress, I used to play amateur [competitive] tennis,” HCC President Christina Royal told Prime during a tour of the college’s new pickleball courts in early December. She explained that a member of the college’s board of trustees, Julie Parker, told her about pickleball. “It’s a close derivative of tennis – she set me up, taught me to play and I started playing regularly,” Royal shared. This summer, she took her skills to the next level and attended pickleball camp.

“Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America,” Royal said, adding that her interest in the game, coupled with its meteoric rise in popularity, were behind her push to bring the popular indoor courts to HCC. “I thought about how to bring [a pickleball facility] to the area; how could we as a community college bring an affordable option to [Western Massachusetts]. Her idea coincided with plans by the college’s Director of Athletics Tom Stewart to renovate space in HCC’s Bartley Athletic Center. The pair consulted a local pickleball play coordinator, Dale Kasal, for help planning out the space and identifying funding, and converted a portion of the facility’s indoor court space to three permanent pickleball courts. Stewart said the Bartley Center adds up to four extra temporary courts in the basketball/volleyball court area during peak play times, usually the first hour of so into the morning. The HCC courts are open to the public from 7 a.m.-1 p.m. Monday to Friday. The cost to play is $5 per person, which includes use of the facility’s paddles and balls.

“I field five calls a day asking about hours and pricing,” Stewart remarked as he explained the popularity of the courts during the tour. Royal added she’s hopeful that the facility can host tournaments in the future.

Another athlete, 65-year-old Ken Johnston of Wilbraham, who Prime profiled when he hiked the Appalachian Trail with his twenty-something son as a fundraiser for Dana Farber in the summer of 2019, was among over a dozen men and women on the HCC pickleball courts the day Prime visited.

Johnston said he’d picked up the sport in May and won a tournament playing with his 29-year-old son Andrew in New Hampshire in July. “Doubles is the way to go unless you’re 25 [years old], “Johnston said with a laugh. He commented on the number of indoor and outdoor pickleball courts that had opened up recently – he also plays at an indoor court that’s been set up in Memorial School in Wilbraham when that court is open – noting there’s been “a lot of converting of indoor facilities that were always there” to accommodate the rapid growth of interest in the sport. Johnston then demonstrated an app on his phone, Team Reach, that the Wilbraham group uses to let each other know when that space is open.

It’s a big deal with the Senior Games

“Pickleball has been big with the Senior Games for at least six or seven years,” Dennis Pollard, chairman of the board of the Massachusetts Senior games told Prime, adding the organization started including competition in the court sport about 10 years ago.

Over that time, Pollard said the Senior Games has seen a change in who plays. “The average ages of players are really going down now. It had been viewed as a senior sport – it got its initial push in popularity in The Villages [in Florida] when they built pickleball courts, but over the past four or five years there’s been a lot of interest from the younger generation,” Pollard said. “It’s the fastest growing individual sport, there’s a professional tournament every weekend now, [some] being held at very prestigious tennis clubs…they used to thumb their nose at the sport …[and] there’s a huge amount of money being spent [on the sport], billionaires are backing different associations for pickleball, it’s just insane.”

An avid player since he and his young son discovered the sport – making their own paddles in the 1970s and early 80s and playing on tennis courts in VT – Pollard said he couldn’t understand at the time why other people weren’t playing too, given how much fun the sport was.

“It’s very addictive, I think primarily because it is so quick to get to a level to have some fun” Pollard observed.

It’s got multi-generational appeal

Canniff, who had recently relocated to Western Massachusetts from Boston, said she’s been teaching pickleball at facilities – including athletic clubs in the winter and country clubs in the summer – in Boston for some time. “It’s such a growing sport right now, I’ve played with a third grader and with my mom, who is 80, age doesn’t matter,” she observed. “On a normal day I see all ages; a 20-something will call and ask, ‘What are you doing, can you come and hit some balls with me?’”

She said her usual partners in the Boston area are “27 to 30 [year old’s who are] just happy they can play a sport again after college.”

And colleges, she noted, are picking up on the trend, and adding pickleball as a club sport.

Though you can learn to play in about an hour, Canniff said it’s after they’ve played in a tournament that most people seek her out for lessons, to “learn what they realize they don’t know.”

She’s happy to provide instruction, but said she always give homework to new students before the first lesson. She shared her pre-lesson step with Prime, to pass on to would-be pickleball players: “If you are looking to learn [pickleball] you can go on YouTube and take video lessons to learn scoring and positioning and the basics for beginners.”

5 RULES OF PICKLEBALL

When it comes to pickleball basics, there are a handful of rules to keep in mind when you’re starting out

#1: The ball must stay inbounds

For most sports, play occurs inbounds and between the lines that outline the court or field. Pickleball is no different. During a match, the pickleball must remain inbounds. If it goes out, the opponent gets a point and it becomes their turn to serve.

#2: There must be one bounce per side

One of pickleball’s unique rules is the “Two Bounce Rule”. The ball must bounce at least once on each side of the court, for both the serve and the return of the serve. Once this has happened, either side can play the ball in the air or let it bounce.

#3: You must serve at the baseline.

When serving the ball, you must serve it from the baseline, the back line of the court. Serve underhand and below the waistline, hitting the ball diagonally over the net and across the court.

#4: Serves cannot land in the no-volley zone

The no-volley zone, also known as the kitchen, is the lined box located seven feet off the net. When serving, the pickleball cannot land in the no-volley zone. After the serve, the ball can land in the kitchen.

#5: The game ends at 11, 15, or 21 points

A traditional pickleball game ends when one person or team reaches 11 points. However, the winner(s) has to win by at least two points. For example, if one person has 11 points but their opponent has 10, the game continues. Game scoring can also be extended to 15 or 21. When playing singles, 11 and 15 are the most common point totals. When playing doubles, 15 and 21 are the most common.

Rules courtesy of

https://www.sportrx.com/blog/what-are-the-rules-of-pickleball/

LEARN IT ON YOUTUBE

Below are links to videos designed to help beginners learn how to play this fast-growing sport

Pickleball basics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=998iCDaZ-m4

Pickleball Rules - Beginners Guide:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2oPdIDV5nc

Top 10 Beginner Pickleball Mistakes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zpDfcoJG-pQ

Pickelball Doubles Scoring

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvqngnmKKvg