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Learnings from the pickleball courts.
I spend several hours every week playing pickleball and tennis at my neighborhood recreation center. It’s a public space, lightly managed by a few folks employed by some local Parks and Rec organization. These folks mostly exist to make sure the lights turn on and the doors to the gym and bathrooms are locked at the end of the day. No profit to be made, just ensuring nothing goes awry.
Pickleball has exploded in popularity, as everyone probably knows by now. There are people of all ages playing every hour of the day, every day of the week. The protocol for pickleball play is simple: you show up, put your paddle in a queue, then you play. You can show up solo and get paired with someone, or you can choose partner.
We used to use this wooden holder to line our paddles in a queue. It was perfectly adequate for its purpose. Earlier this year, a retired guy named Richard bought a new paddle holder and put the other one in a corner.
Next to the new paddle holder is a sign that Richard made with a bucket of rubber bands. It says something like:
If you are playing with a chosen partner, put your paddles in the holder with a rubber band around them.
Then, in further description:
Instructions
Take a rubber band.
Put each paddle in a holding slot in the paddle holder.
Put the rubber band around you and your partner’s paddle.
Before you go on the court, put the rubber band back in this bucket. (This is emphasized in bold.)
Sometimes I get paired with Richard, which is statistically inevitable because he is there every day. On a spring Saturday, we played against a girl and a guy in their late twenties. They had brought a speaker and placed it next to the court. Richard and I were losing. After a point where he hit it into the net, he said to no one in particular: This isn’t real music. It’s making me play poorly. (It was rap music.)
A few weeks back, I paired up with my friend Clark to play. There is always an unspoken challenger court that advanced players use to compete where the winners stay on. That day, we decided to use a court on the north west side as the challenger court. It was a small change from the previous week, where the south east court was used as the challenger court.
Richard clocked this immediately. He turned towards Clark. Why are you moving the challenger court?
Because I want to.
Do you always talk to other people like a big baby?
Nope.
We always use the other court as the challenger court, Richard snipped back.
You don’t own this place, Richard.
I bought the new nets. (A few months prior, Richard rallied a group of players to contribute five or ten bucks to buy new nets for two courts.)
Back in December, the courts were resurfaced, and pickleball lines were painted over the sole tennis court. With these additions, pickleballers are allowed to use the tennis court if there is no one playing tennis. If tennis players show up, the pickleballers have to give them the court. This has created an interesting dynamic where the pickleballers have become used to having the second court as an option. As such, they become aggravated when tennis players show up.
I was hitting with a friend on a Wednesday and passed Richard on my way to the tennis court. He looked at my tennis racquet—which was sticking out of my New Yorker tote bag—like it was a dog-sized cockroach.
Tennis today? He nods at my bag.
Yeah. I pause.
You’re so good at pickleball, though. I never understand why you play tennis. He grins, like he just handed me a piece of candy.
Cool.
Shortly after pickleball lines were painted over the single tennis court, Richard took initiative to approach the rec center folks to refute the tennis priority rule. After a few months of negotiation, a new rule was made that limits the days that the court can be used for tennis.
One evening, a tennis player named Kris approached Richard. Hey man, why’d you do that?
Richard looked at him with a marked expression of seriousness. It’s what is right.