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History of Pickleball: More Than 50 Years of Fun!
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About History Of Pickleball: More Than 50 Years Of
Product Description WINNER National Indie Excellence Awards - 2020Are you curious about how pickleball came to be or how the sport got such a funny name? Do you know what caused pickleball to become the fastest growing sport in America and what people and events helped spark this growth? Do you wonder how the rules were determined or why the court is the size it is? Be fascinated by the stories of founders Barney McCallum, Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell.History of Pickleball: More Than 50 Years of Fun! has these answers and many more! Authors Jennifer (daughter/Pickleball Hall of Fame 2019 Inductee) and Beverly (mother/one of the first USAPA Ambassadors) have spent three years researching and gathering stories from pioneers of the sport, as well as pulling from their personal experiences to bring you a fascinating compilation of pickleball history.Chapter titles include: The Summer of 65; Playing on the Early Courts and Growth; Pickle-Ball, The Corporation; Pukaball – Early Years on Maui; Washington; Trade Shows; The Name (of course!); Paddles; Balls and Nets; Rules; Florida; U.S.A.P.A.; Arizona; Tournaments; Pickleball Around the World; Health Facts; and much more! USA Pickleball endorsement: "A book is as vital to our game as the paddle, ball, net , lines and third shot - Jennifer Lucore and Beverly Youngren have given us the story of our game's history." Enjoy. Review The Atlantic Magazine, ESPN The Magazine, and Bleacher Report - Chris Koentges:"Self-published histories of obscure sports tend to fall into one of two traps. If they're not dumbed down timelines of events, such books can come off as bloated and smarmy--impenetrable to outsiders. Introducing their History of Pickleball, the first-time authors Jennifer Lucore and Beverly Youngren (daughter and mother) express reservations about the task they've signed up for. While they're revered players within the game, they still find themselves on the outer edges of pickleball's historic inner circles. They even go so far as to refer to themselves in the third person, asking: "Why are they the ones to write the history of pickleball? They don't have a clue...but if not them, then who?"In the process of addressing their fears, Lucore and Youngren subtly begin to evoke a chorus of pickleball's lost voices. Not content simply to detail fifty years of history, the authors viscerally put us inside various backyards and cabins on Bainbridge Island in the 1960s. We feel the carefree optimism of summer. The chutzpah of inventing a game from scratch. Among this motley group of the game's first characters, Lucore and Youngren zero in on two of the more important founders. A Washington senator named Joel Pritchard, who became the early face of pickleball, and his good friend Barney McCallum. Pritchard is the charismatic ideas guy, chummy with the intelligentsia of Cascadia, including the governor of Washington, who eventually builds a pickleball court behind the state mansion. McCallum is the details guy. He runs an envelope factory, which becomes just as important to the apotheosis of their new game as Pritchard's weathered backyard badminton court. Together, the two friends aren't just building a new sport, but an ethos. Early on, McCallum tells Lucore: "Good games that survive are well-balanced." This idea resonates through the book. "Barney viewed the game as a way for players of all skill levels to have a chance to get off the sidelines and play." Over countless visits, he would emphasize to Lucore: "From day one, we fought the idea of big people, powerful people, dominating the game." Above all, McCallum wanted pickleball to become the ultimate inclusive sport, "where girls could compete with boys."As simple as their game would appear--the rules were meant to fit on one page--its fringes were hazy and filled with competing lores. Lucore and Youngren bring their own deft balance, as they sift through what turns out to be conflicting historical accounts. The pair wri
