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| Jim Troxell plays pickleball at Murrysville SportZone. |
Pickleball players will flock to Pittsburgh from
June 3 to 5 for the inaugural Gamma Pickleball Classic in the David L. Lawrence
Convention Center.
The fast-growing sport combines elements of
tennis, badminton, ping pong, racquetball and volleyball. Players of those
sports will be familiar with terminology such as foot fault, let, lob and
volley.
Tournament proceeds will benefit the Parkinson
Foundation of Western Pennsylvania.
Using pickleball as a Parkinson's fundraiser was
a cinch for event co-chairman Michael Wertz of Upper St. Clair, the CEO of
Apple Box Studios. He's the chairman of the foundation's board and knew of
pickleball from the tournament held on the last day of school each year at
Upper St. Clair High School, which his children attended.
His late father suffered from Parkinson's
disease.
“I was researching Parkinson's and I found a
YouTube video of a Parkinson's patient who said he had to play all the time to
feel good,” Wertz says. “It helps with coordination, and it's a sport of
finesse, not power.”
To organize the classic, Wertz teamed up with
Wayne Dollard, publisher of the Peters-based In Community magazines and
Pickleball Magazine, the official magazine of the USA Pickleball Association.
The event will be an open competition for
players who will rate their own skill levels, as well as a USAPA-sanctioned
event for players with skill ratings of 4.5 and above.
The duo expects about 300 people to play in the
inaugural tournament, although Wertz is setting his sights higher for the
future.
“Because the sport is so new, a lot of our
players will be first-timers,” he says. “My goal is to build this into a major
event in the city. Eventually, I'd like to have 1,000 people with Parkinson's
participating.”
The date was chosen to coincide with the opening
weekend of the Three Rivers Arts Festival and a Pirates' home stand.
“The city will be really buzzing that weekend,
and I want to show it off to people coming in from all over,” Wertz says.
“We'll have players from Maryland, Ohio, New York and a couple of snowbirds
from Florida.”
With pickleball courts available at area YMCAs,
parks and community centers, no one needs to travel too far to find a game.
(Click on “Places to Play” at usapa.org
to find them.)
Jim Troxell of Murrysville is the informal
pickleball organizer at Murrysville SportZone, where a group of about 50
regulars plays year-round on five courts on Monday, Thursday and Friday
mornings.
“I've had people a lot older beat the crap out
of me,” says Troxell, 70. “Our age group is 62 and up, and right now we have
people up to 82 playing. Younger people are welcome, but it's mostly the older
ones who have time to play in the daytime.”
Pickleball has been played at the Rose E.
Schneider Family YMCA since about 2010, says sports director Nathan Statzer.
“We started with three courts one or two days a
week,” he says. “Now we have six courts going from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday
through Friday and we're looking to add more time.”
As the popularity has grown, the equipment has
become more sophisticated, Statzer says.
“People started out with wooden paddles sort of
like you use for ping pong. Now they have graphite composite and you can pay
anywhere from $30 to $130,” he says.
Tournament sponsor Gamma Sports, a manufacturer
of racquet sports equipment, carries paddles and balls for either indoor or
outdoor play.
“It's one of the fastest-growing sports in the
country,” Wertz says. “I think we'll all be playing pickleball at some time in
our lives.”
Shirley McMarlin is a Tribune-Review staff
writer. Reach her at 724-836-5750 or smcmarlin@tribweb.com.
How Pickleball started
Pickleball was invented in the summer of 1965 in
the Bainbridge Island backyard of Joel Pritchard, then a Washington state
representative, when a bored group of relatives and friends couldn't find the
shuttlecock for a game of badminton and ended up playing with a wiffle ball and
some hastily constructed plywood paddles.
According to the USA Pickleball Association, a
popular story had the name coming from the family dog, Pickles, who would chase
the balls and hide them in the bushes. Pritchard's wife Joan said the name
actually referred to a “pickle boat,” the slowest vessel in a rowing race, and
the dog was named after the sport.
In 1967, the first permanent pickleball court
was constructed in the backyard of the Pritchards' neighbor.
During the 1970s, pickleball moved from
backyards, driveways and residential streets to become a paddle court sport
with formalized rules. The first pickleball association was formed in 1972,
with the first known tournament held in 1976 in Tukwila, Wash.
In 1984, USAPA “was organized to perpetuate the
growth and advancement of pickleball on a national level” and the first
rulebook was published.
A standard court is 20-by-44-feet, with a net
hung at 36 inches. Points are scored by the serving side only, and the first
side scoring 11 points and leading by at least two points wins. Most
pickleballers play doubles, although singles can compete.
http://triblive.com/aande/moreaande/10341125-74/pickleball-says-parkinson
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