Finding a passion for pickleball

For the past few years, I’ve covered a number of folks who have been passionate pickleball players.
I had one source in particular, at my last newspaper, who anytime I tried to get a hold of him, if he didn’t answer, there was a good chance he was going to call me back and tell me he was playing a game of pickleball.
Even the cities I have covered have been pretty adamant about building or enhancing their courts, but up until recently I had never played or even watched a game.
Well, needless to say, I am now hooked on the sport.
On the Friday of Memorial Day weekend, some of our friends invited us to head over to their neighborhood to play some pickleball and have a cookout after.
None of the people there had played before but we were looking forward to a fun activity.
I wasn’t sure what to expect, but quickly realized it was a really fun sport. We played for several hours, if the court had lights, we probably would’ve played until 10 or 11 p.m.
After the night of pickleball my wife and I decided we would buy our own paddles and balls, and it would be a sport we could play more often.
The next week we were back out at the courts, playing with our friends again, for several hours. It’s likely it will become at least a biweekly Friday night pickleball event with friends.
The beautiful thing about pickleball in my opinion, is that it’s somewhat simple to learn, and it’s a sport that anyone can play no matter what their skill level is or their athletic abilities.
To give you an idea of how much enthusiasm my friend group now has for the sport, I woke up this morning to a video in the group chat, about you guessed it, pickleball!