PCKL11 ·
How To Start a Pickleball Community
Happy Mardi Gras! We hope you celebrated with some pickleball and king cake.
In today’s edition of PCKL 11, you’ll learn how to use the lob for offense, which billionaire played pickleball before it was cool, and the four unspoken rules of the sport.
How To’s ✅
- How to start a pickleball community (PCKL)
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With more than 36 million pickleball players, there’s a need for leaders to facilitate group play. If you want to launch a community but don’t know where to start, we’re here to help. Here’s an easy step-by-step process for building a pickleball community.
- How to use the lob for offense (The Pickler)
- If you don’t have killer power, then try incorporating the infamous lob into your game. It can push your opponents back into a defensive position. It could also give you some great nicknames like The Lobster, Hobby Lobby, or Lobotomy — because of all the headaches you’ll give people.
Black History Month ✊🏿
- Pickleball gave Jessie Irvine a second chance (Desert Sun)
- In honor of Black History Month, get to know one of the top 10 players on the women’s pro tour — Jessie Irvine. By the age of 13, she was one of the best junior tennis players in the country. But injuries kept her from pursuing the sport she loved. Then, in 2019, she picked up a pickle paddle and hasn’t slowed down since.
You have to watch this 🤯
- Two Annas, one crazy point (PPA Tour)
- Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright are the best teammates who share a name since, well, anyone? This past weekend, they won women’s doubles on the PPA Tour Arizona Grand Slam. And this ridiculous rally shows why the Annas are unstoppable.
Fun Reads 😃
- 20 founders and billionaires who play sports (Business Insider)
- When Jeff Bezos isn’t going to space, he’s keeping things down to earth by horseback riding. Zuckerberg finds time for mixed martial arts — probably in preparation for when AI decides to challenge humans. But it’s Bill Gates who keeps it the realest — he’s been a pickler since before it was cool.
- Girl wins most esteemed Girl Scouts award for pickleball project (Shelby Star)
- Annmarie built a pickleball target for players to use as they warmed up for their next game. The target had a qr code that led people to the rules of pickleball and ways to get connected to other players in their area. The nifty invention landed her the Gold Award — a Girl Scout’s highest honor.
Things you should know 🧠
- The 4 unspoken rules of pickleball (PCKL Blog)
- Do you apologize for net shots? There are things nobody puts in a rulebook but every player expects you to do. We’re happy to provide the resource we wish we had in our early days of pickleball.
Stats 📈
- Stats show speedups are the new strat (The Dink)
- Is dinking becoming like physical maps — a thing only your grandpa uses? Stats reveal how winning teams on the pro tour tend to rely on speedups to secure points. Rallies are lasting shorter and hits are getting harder.
Watching Pickleball 📺
- ESPN signs deal with APP (Variety)
- Disney just got more magical. As owner of ESPN, Disney struck a deal with the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP) to feature more than 200 hours of pickleball across multiple ESPN channels. It got us thinking, which Disney characters would make the best doubles team? We’re going with Elsa and Gaston.
- How does watching pickleball compare to other sports? (Redditt)
- A Reddit user asked if pickleball has the fanbase to help it survive as a professional sport. What ensued is a debate over how interesting pickleball is compared to other sports.
Pro Updates 👔
- Down goes Ben Johns (Forbes)
- If your name is Anna or has “Johns” in it, you’ll be on the podium. In mixed doubles at PPA’s third event of the year, the Johnson siblings ended Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters' perfect streak of gold. But the brother-sister duo couldn’t topple Anna Bright and Riley Newman in the championship. The losses didn’t end there for Ben. Federico Staksrud took down Ben in the singles bracket.
Thanks for reading PCKL 11.
Dink Soon!
— Team PCKL
