Pickleball History
1965
After playing golf one summer Saturday, Joel Pritchard, Congressman from Washington State, and Bill Bell, successful businessman, returned to Pritchard's house on Bainbridge Island, WA (near Seattle) to find their families sitting around with nothing to do. There was an old badminton court on the property, so Pritchard and Bell looked for some badminton equipment and couldn't find a complete set of rackets. They improvised and started playing with ping pong rackets and a plastic ball with holes in it. First, they set up the net at badminton height of about 5 feet and hit the ball over the net. As the weekend progressed, the players found that the ball bounced well on the asphalt surface and soon the net was lowered to 3 feet. The following weekend, Barney McCallum was introduced to the game at Pritchard's house. Soon the three men created rules that were heavily based on badminton. They kept the original purpose in mind, which was to offer a game that the whole family could play together.
1967
The first permanent pickleball court was built in the backyard of Joel Pritchard's friend and neighbor Bob O'Brian.
1972
A society was founded to protect the emergence of this new sport.
1975
The National Observer published an article about pickleball, followed by a 1976 article in Tennis magazine about "America's Newest Racquet Sport."
1976
In the spring of 1976, the world's first known pickleball tournament was held at the South Center Athletic Club in Tukwila, Washington. David Lester won the men's singles and Steve Paranto took second place. Many of the participants were college tennis players who knew very little about pickleball. In fact, they practiced with large wooden paddles and a softball-sized whiffle ball.
1978
The book "The Other Raquet Sports" was published and contained information about pickleball.
1982
Pickleball pioneer Sid Williams began playing and organizing tournaments in Washington state.
1984
The United States Amateur Pickleball Association (USAPA) was founded to promote the growth and development of pickleball on a national level. The first rule book was published in March 1984. The first executive director and president of USAPA was Sid Williams, who served from 1984 to 1998. He was succeeded by Frank Candelario, who kept things running until 2004. The first composite paddle was made by Arlen Paranto, a Boeing industrial engineer. He used the fiberglass/Nomex honeycomb panels that commercial airlines use for their floors and as part of the structural system of the airplanes. Arlen made about 1,000 paddles from fiberglass/honeycomb and graphite/honeycomb materials until he sold the company to Frank Candelario.
1990
Pickleball was played in all 50 states in the USA.
1997
Joel Pritchard has passed away at the age of 72. Although he served as Lieutenant Governor of Washington State from 1988 to 1996, he is probably better known for his connection to the birth of pickleball.
2001
The game of pickleball was first introduced to the Arizona Senior Olympics through the efforts of Earl Hill. The tournament was played at the Happy Trails RV Resort in Surprise, AZ and attracted 100 players. It was the largest event played up to that point. Over the next few years, the event grew to nearly 300 players.
2003
There are 39 known courts in North America listed on the Pickleball Stuff website. This represents 10 states, 3 Canadian provinces, and approximately 150 individual courts. Pickleball was included for the first time in the Huntsman World Senior Games, held each October in St. George, Utah.
2005
A new association for the sport was formed as the USA Pickleball Association (USAPA). Mark Friedenberg was appointed the first president of the new USAPA and the first board of directors consisted of:
Vice President - Steve Wong
Secretary - Fran Myer
Treasurer - Lela Reed
General Counsel - Phil Mortenson
Complaints Officer - Phil Mortenson
Marketing - Erne Perry, followed by Pat Carroll in March, 2006
Membership - Carole Myers
National/International Relations and the Ambassador Program - Earl Hill
Newsletter - Jettye Lanius
translation.history.Rating_and_rankings
Rules - Dennis Duey
Tournaments - Barney Myer
Education - Norm Davis
Webmaster - Steve Wong
Steve Wong (former USAPA webmaster) created the first USAPA website, which went live in March. Activity on the site has continued to increase as the popularity of pickleball grows and the site\'s features expand.
USAPA became a non-profit organization on July 1.
USAPA partnered with several websites to get them to drop their Places to Play links and consolidate all of their listings into the USAPA database, creating a single reliable source for players to find places to play. Today, that website is: places2play.org
2006
One of the founding fathers of the sport, Bill Bell, dies at the age of 83.
2013
The first Pickleball Club in Germany is founded: First PickleBall Club Germany eV in Augsburg
2017
The German Pickleball Association is founded in Gelsenkirchen. Andreas Kopkau becomes the first president and in the same year the DPB becomes a member of the IFP - International Pickleball Association.
2019
The German Pickleball Association is hosting the prestigious Bainbridge Cup in conjunction with the first International German Open. It is the largest pickleball tournament outside of North America to date with 378 players from over 26 countries. The mega tournament was held in Essen at the TVN with 28 indoor courts.
2020
The number of pickleball clubs has increased tenfold since the founding of the DPB, from 3 clubs to over 30 clubs. The tournament scene is also slowly developing and for the first time the first German Pickleball Championships are taking place in Gelsenkirchen.
THE NAME OF THE SPORT - PICKLEBALL
Pickleball
Pickleball has a very interesting name, especially since no pickles are used. There are different explanations as to how the name came about.
(1) According to Joel Pritchard\'s wife (Joan), she started calling the game pickleball because the combination of different sports reminded me of the pickle boat in the team, where rowers were selected from the remnants of other boats.
(2) However, according to Barney McCallum, the game was officially named after the Pritchards' dog, Pickles, who would chase the ball and run away with it. According to McCallum, 'The Pritchards had a dog named Pickles, and you have fun at a party, right? So what the heck, let's just call it pickleball.
Others claim that both tales may actually be true. In the early years, no official name was assigned to the game. However, a year or two after the game was invented, the Pritchards bought a cocker spaniel and named him Pickles. As the game progressed, an official name was needed and 'Pickleball' it was.