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It’s impossible to talk about outdoor recreation these days without talking about pickleball. More than 48 million adult Americans played the sport in 2023, according to the Association of Pickleball professionals. Now, people of all ages across the country – and Northern Kentucky – are getting in on the action.
“It’s great exercise and really good just mingling with nice people, so the social part is huge,” said Barbara Ruh, who coordinates the social media accounts for a group of pickleball players who practice every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning at the Five Seasons Sports Club in Crestview Hills.
The group is one of the longest running pickleball groups in the region. It all started when a group of friends traveled to the Villages, a large retirement community in Florida, about 35 years ago. David “Skip” Egbers and Bob Durrett were both introduced to the sport in Florida, got hooked and decided to bring it back to Northern Kentucky.
“So one day, [Egbers] said, ‘Well, why don’t we do this back home?’” Durrett said. “We’ll get some people together and start playing. And I said, ‘All right, you get one, and I’ll get one.’ He says, ‘Well, I don’t know any tennis players?’ I said, ‘All right, I’ll get two guys.’ I got two players, and we started playing pickleball at Five Seasons.”
The Five Seasons didn’t let them play inside at first because they were afraid the noise would disrupt the tennis players, but they let them play outside.
“Now, Five Seasons has 18 courts inside and any number of courts outside,” Egbers said.
The game dates to the 1960s on Bainbridge Island in Washington, where a trio of friends – Barney McCallum, Bill Bell and Joel Pritchard, who would later serve as Washington’s lieutenant governor and a representative for the state in Congress – began experimenting with wooden paddles and balls on a badminton court.
Although today the game is often associated with older adults, initially it was designed as a way to keep kids occupied.
“It was a typical, bad weather day on this beach, rainy and wet,” said Barney McCallum in an interview with the Pickleball Channel. “And so, the kids were driving the adults crazy, so Joel [Pritchard] said, ‘Take this paddle and this ball and go up to the badminton court and hit it around.’”
In the subsequent months, the three men developed the sport into something more closely resembling what’s played today. The sport has only grown in popularity since then. Locally, there are now pickleball courts in parks around the region, and many exercise facilities usually make room for courts as tennis and badminton courts are easily converted for pickleball.
Everyone who spoke with LINK nky said the same thing when asked why the game had become so popular: Anyone can play it, barring serious mobility issues. The rules are easy to understand, and it doesn’t require the same level of physicality as something like tennis.
“I’m 93, and I’m still playing,” said Durrett.
“Pickleball is fun,” said Darron Scanlon, CEO of the Players Pickleball Club. “It’s physical. You enjoy the activity quite a bit. You can do it with your girlfriend, your wife, your spouse, all ages, all genders. You don’t have to be an incredible athlete to play and have fun.”
The Players Pickleball Club hasn’t opened yet, but Scanlon is working to establish a facility in Richwood in Boone County. The goal, Scanlon said, is not only to have a place where anyone can come and (inexpensively) play but also for it to serve as a hub for tournament play. Scanlon also hopes to include a pro shop, where players can try out and buy paddles and other equipment in person, rather than ordering online or through the mail.
He said the business’s goal is to become something like the “Top Golf of Pickleball,” adding he had ambitions of expanding his business beyond Greater Cincinnati to metropolitan areas across the country. The plan is to open the facility’s outdoor courts later this year; the indoor courts should open in 2026.
“It makes people bond as friends when they get out there,” Egbers said. “So, it’s not a game that’s going to be too competitive to make you upset, but it’s a lot of fun.”