Pickleball popular with old, young alike

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By Stephanie De Pasquale | Wednesday, June 18, 2008 |

Rita Post, Blue Grass, high fives Jim Dolan, Bettendorf, after a game of Pickleball at Northwest Park, Davenport. (Larry Fisher/QUAD-CITY TIMES) Buy this Photo

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For three years, Kathy Dolan of Bettendorf and Rita Post of Blue Grass, Iowa, have been playing pickleball weekly with the Iowa Picklers while wintering in Florida.

Now they can play the sport — a combination of badminton, tennis and pingpong — while spending their summers in the Quad-Cities.

“We were really hoping for it because some of us have been calling the park board and saying, ‘Can we play pickleball? Can you put some courts up?’ ” Post said Wednesday.

The pair attended a pickleball clinic hosted Wednesday by the Davenport Parks and Recreation Department at Northwest Park. They said pickleball is very popular in Florida and Arizona, where senior citizens play in leagues while vacationing during the winter, but their grandkids enjoy the game as well.

“Our grandsons came down and we thought we’d teach them a new game and they said, ‘We have this in gym class at West High,’ ” Post said.

Dolan said an 8 a.m. pickleball clinic on a summer day might be a little too early for most teens, but youngsters enjoy the game, too.

“When they come to Florida to visit their grandparents, they all get into it,” she said.

Virgil McCormick has been playing pickleball for 20 to 25 years, and the 76-year-old said he is pretty good at the game because he can move faster than most his age.

“It’s a fun game. We’ve converted a lot of tennis players over,” he said, “especially the older people that can’t move quite as good, you know have hip replacements, knee replacements, what have you. That’s my advantage. I can still move pretty good.”

The pickleball clinic was held to gauge interest in forming leagues, said Mindy Isenhour of the Davenport Parts and Recreation Department. Based on the turnout of about 40 seasoned players and some newcomers, she plans on going ahead with the plan.

“People like it because it’s a little slower-paced than tennis,” she said. “It’s not as much movement, and you can play as singles, but most people play as doubles, so that’s even less movement on the court for people. And for people with bad knees, it’s just a little easier exercise, but it still keeps you moving.”

That slower-paced, easy-on-the-knees movement is what got Karen Fee of Davenport hooked on pickleball after hitting only four balls back and forth across the court.

Fee has been swimming laps to lose weight and was looking for something to augment that activity.

“I wanted something fast, and tennis would be too hard on my cranky knees, so this looks like a really good activity,” she said. “I’m really looking forward to this. It just looks like what I’m looking for.”

Stephanie De Pasquale can be contacted at (563) 333-2639 or sdepasquale@qctimes.com.