By Debby Woodin
dwoodin@joplinglobe.com
Would you relish a chance to learn a new sport? If so, you might be sweet on a game called pickle-ball.
The Joplin Parks and Recreation Department is planning a demonstration Thursday to introduce residents to the sport, a cross between pingpong, badminton and tennis. The event, weather permitting, will be held at 6 p.m. at Memorial Hall, 212 W. Eighth St.
“It’s a paddle sport that was started in the state of Washington,” said Doug Joyce, the city’s parks director. “It’s played on a court about the size of volleyball. You use a hard wooden paddle and a whiffle ball.”
Where does the pickle come in?
Joyce said he hopes it doesn’t sour prospective players to know that there’s no actual pickle involved in the game.
“The name actually came from the family that invented it,” he said. “Pickles was the name of their dog, and when they started playing it, they used Pickles’ ball.”
Some physical education students from Missouri Southern State University are to show how the sport is played during the demonstration.
A pickle-ball class is offered at MSSU. Pat Lipira, with the university’s kinesiology department, teaches the game.
“Basically, what it is is another racket game,” Lipira said. “It’s kind of a combination of tennis and badminton. You can play it indoors or outdoors. You can play it on a tennis court or you can play it on a badminton court. It’s kind of a slowed-down version of tennis. You can learn it as a kind of introduction to tennis. Tennis is hard.”
Lipira said the wooden paddles are similar to pingpong paddles but larger. The ball is about the size of a baseball. The game uses a net with a 34-inch center height, the same as tennis.
“It’s a good game,” Lipira said. “It has a couple of rules. You cannot stand at the net and mash the ball. You have to be behind the volley line to hit the ball so that big people can’t stand at the net and dominate the game. And there’s a double bounce rule. It has to bounce on both sides before it can be hit.”
She and Joyce said the game is growing in popularity because people of all ages, from children to senior citizens, can play it.
It’s not as fast-paced as tennis, Lipira said.
“It’s a fun game,” she said. “Where it’s gotten real popular is with adults.”
She said she recently visited a fitness center in Rogers, Ark., with indoor pickle-ball courts, and all the courts were full.
“It’s good exercise,” she said. “It’s fun. You can play singles. You can play doubles. We play teams with six (players) on a side. Any time you can get a variation on a game, it’s kind of novel and unique, and that makes it fun.”
Joyce said he wants to get residents acquainted with the game because he intends to convert a couple of rarely used tennis courts at Schifferdecker Park into pickle-ball courts in the spring.
On the Net
The history and rules for the game of pickle-ball can be found at www.pickleball.com.
