Pickleball is growing in popularity in the area

Some pickle ball enthusiasts would like more popular sports facilities in the area.

Stafford has painted lines on a few outdoor tennis courts, said Donna Oliver, president of the SFS Pickleball League. The courts are not pretty and the tennis court is much bigger than a pickle ball.

Certified pickleball instructor Lorraine Walton, who has played the sport for nearly a decade, said the lack of public courts in Stafford County and elsewhere led her to join the Rappahannock Area YMCA on Butler Road, which has six dedicated outdoor pickleball courts. Y has plans to build a seventh court indoors.

“I joined it specifically because I wanted a place to play pickle ball,” Walton said.

The sport was invented in 1965 as a backyard game for children in the Pacific Northwest and has grown in popularity across the country in recent years. The problem is that newer players like Allison Simia of Fredericksburg sometimes struggle to find an indoor ball court when it’s cold or raining outside.

It’s full, said Simila, who started the sport last June. If (pickleball) becomes more popular, you’d be in trouble.

Late last year, the Sports and Fitness Industry Association reported that there were 4.8 million pickleball players in the United States, but at the same time, another study released by the Association of Pickleball Professionals put the number at more than 36.5 million.

“No one disputes or argues that pickleball is one of, if not the fastest growing sports in America,” said Tom Webb, APP’s director of marketing. It’s clearly something that will establish itself very quickly.

Webb said the SFIA survey arrived at its numbers by asking survey participants about their participation in a variety of sports, including golf, tennis and running. He said his study targeted thousands of survey participants with specific questions about pickleball, including how often the survey respondents played the sport.

This is verifiable, credible consumer research, Webb said. These numbers are a credible snapshot of what the US population is doing right now.

In a few weeks, Webb said his group will release even more data on pickleball players that will take a closer look at the game’s demographics.

Pickleball’s growth rate is even greater than people think it is now, Webb said. And it’s a younger audience than people think it is.

Webb said two years ago, 90 Pickle Balls were opening each month across the United States, but he said last year that number jumped to 120 new locations being added each month.

That alone is a 25 percent increase in the amount of infrastructure in one year and is a very large number, he said.

The popular paddle game combines elements of badminton and ping-pong, using a hollow plastic ball with holes that resemble a Wiffle ball. The game is played either on indoor or outdoor courts, which are about 1/3 the size of a traditional tennis court.

Players like Simila say salt ball is an affordable, healthy way to stay in shape.

I hate working out, I don’t like the gym and I knew I needed sports to stay in shape, she said. I play every day.

The minimal bounce of the salt balls, combined with the non-volleyball area of ​​the court known as the kitchen area, gives the game a pace that ranges from soft blocks in the middle of the 34-inch-high net to more aggressive shots or overhead collisions. opponents.

It’s nice to mix it up and play with younger people who move around a lot and those who are more advanced, said Danielle Szenas of Spotsylvania County. You can’t even move at all and be really good at this sport.

Szenas admits he didn’t fully understand the many rules of pickleball when he first stepped onto the court last September, but he said the players who had been around for a while quickly showed him the ropes.

“Just figuring out who’s serving, when you’re serving, how many servings you’re getting, after a while it just clicks,” he said. I didn’t know about the kitchen in the first month until we played with the advanced players.

Local officials say they are aware of the growing popularity of pickleball throughout the region, and many say they plan to build more pickleball courts in the next few years to meet the needs of players.

Stafford County Parks Director Brion Southall said in July 2028, John Lee Pratt Park will begin a $145,000 resurfacing job to create six brand new pickleball courts.

He said some pickleball players have complained about the lack of bounce on the Staffords’ existing outdoor courts due to the protective film added to the surface of the courts about 15 years ago. While the added surface controls cracks and undergrowth, Southall said a better surface could have been chosen for the pickle ball all those years ago if they could have predicted the sport’s explosion in popularity.

Nobody knew anything about it, Southall said. The membrane was designed for tennis and that type of surface was used all over the country at the time.

Stafford has four pickleball courts at Pratt Park and three at Curtis Memorial Park. The county also has courts at the Stafford Community Center, the Rowser Building, and a court primarily used for classes at the Gari Melchers Complex.

Funding for the county’s future pickleball fields will include four to six new fields at the future Musselman Park in South Staffords, Southall said. He said that was due to public pressure to build more courts after about 60 residents came to a January town hall meeting to discuss future amenities at the new park.

Pickleball was mentioned a lot at that meeting, Southall said. There’s money for that.

Southall said the new park’s pickleball courts will aesthetically blend in with the overall theme of the 28-acre Hartwood parcel, and $355,000 has been earmarked for even more pickleball courts at other locations in Stafford.

There’s nearly half a million dollars in the pipeline and in the future for the pickle ball, Southall said. People want it and we support it.

Spotsylvania spokeswoman Michelle McGinnis said the existing tennis courts have three park areas that offer pickleball. One court is at the Chancellor Community Center, while two lighted courts can be found in both Cosner and Keswick parks. McGinnis said the county also has two indoor pickleball courts at the Marshall Community Center as part of the 55-plus senior program for a small fee to play.

McGinnis said the county recognizes more needs to be done to meet the future demands of the Spotsylvanias pickleball community and said $852,000 has been earmarked for the county capital improvement plan to build new courts in the near future.

The county has plans to build eight lighted, dedicated pickleball fields starting in the summer of 2024, McGinnis said. Its popularity is increasing as more and more people are exposed to it.

Fredericksburg Assistant Parks and Recreation Director Mike Ward said that while there are no plans to build new courts in the city, there are already several courts that he believes will meet the needs of residents.

Starting in 2013, he said, the city replaced the former bicycle rodeo asphalt pad on Kenmore Avenue in Memorial Park with a pickle field. Ward said within a year, the city’s pickleball players wanted more space, so four more courts were added to the park.

“I think it’s a very social sport to begin with and secondly it’s a sport you can learn very quickly,” he said. It’s not a sport where you chase balls all over the place like tennis.

Culpeper opened its first public pickleball courts last October at Mountain Run Lake Park. The PATH Fitness Center and Culpeper County Fieldhouse also have multi-sport courts available for members to play pickleball.