By Killian Maree
For the North Star Reporter
Pickleball has quickly become a favorite pastime for people of all ages in North Attleborough, its surrounding towns and throughout the country.
The sport is mostly played in doubles and on a court with a net that is 36 inches tall from the sideline and 34 inches from the center. The player that is serving hits the ball to the player diagonal from them, and from there they are free to volley, as long as the ball does not hit in the non-volley area, or the “kitchen.” There is a two-bounce rule and games are usually played to 11 points.
The sport of pickleball was first played in Washington state in 1965, but has slowly made its way all over the country, and is even taught to high schoolers in gym class. Justin Maloof, the chief competition officer of USA Pickleball, attributed the sport’s popularity to its familiarity.
“It’s super-easy to learn because the skill set is so familiar,” said Maloof. “If you’ve ever played racquetball, tennis – really, any paddle or racquet sport – pickleball is going to be very familiar to anyone who’s played.”
Maloof also said that pickleball is multi-generational, something not always seen with other sports.
“What pickleball is experiencing now is a move into mainstream culture. We’re seeing the sport trending much younger,” Maloof said. “When I came in 12 years ago, we had a perception issue of pickleball being a senior-only activity.”
Rohan Kohli is a North Attleborough resident and has been a member of the pickleball club team at the University of Virginia for a year now. Kohli learned how to play pickleball while attending North Attleborough High School, and even has a net that can be set up in the driveway that he uses with family and friends.
“I like [pickleball] because it’s easy to get started with, but there’s a lot of room to improve your game,” said Kohli. “Once you start to get better, games can get pretty intense and that is very fun. I think it’s also been a great way for me to make friends at school.”
The Attleboro Norton YMCA holds pickleball almost every single day, twice a day on weekdays. All ages play on the courts, and there’s even another court that is set up in case more people want to play than their usual courts can hold. The Hockomock YMCA in North Attleborough also offers pickleball on three courts.
According to Eric Stringfellow, Sports Director at the Attleboro Norton YMCA, many of the people who play pickleball are regulars. Stringfellow said that they are very accepting and love to show new people the ropes of the sport.
“Pickleball, according to the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, now has 14 million players in the U.S., which makes it the fastest growing sport the last four years in a row,” said Maloof.
With pickleball programs like the ones at Attleboro Norton YMCA that bring so much joy to competitive people who love to be active, Maloof guesses that society is only on the cusp of pickleball’s popularity as more people discover the sport.
The story behind the sport
The invention of the sport of pickleball dates back to 1965, when two men, Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell, returned to Pritchard’s home near Seattle and noticed that their families were sitting around, bored, with nothing to do.
The property that they were on had a badminton court, however Bell and Pritchard could not find any badminton equipment around the property. They improvised and used ping-pong paddles and an old plastic ball.
The next weekend, a man named Barney McCallum was introduced to the sport. Soon after this introduction, McCallum, Bell and Pritchard created rules that relied heavily on those of badminton and made sure that the whole family could play. In 1967, the first permanent pickleball net was constructed in the backyard of Joel Pritchard’s neighbor’s backyard, Bob O’Brien.
In 1972 a corporation was formed to protect the creation of the sport. By 1990, pickleball had officially been played in all 50 states of America. In 2005, the USA Pickleball Association was formed, and from there the sport has continued to gain popularity, with USA Pickleball membership reaching 70,000 in February of 2023.
