Val Olson (from left), Rick Kamm, Steve David and Dee Haskins play up to the net during a pickleball game at Monument Valley Park in Colorado Springs, Colo., in 2011. Colorado Springs Gazette/MCT via Getty Images hide caption
It’s a bright fall morning in Santa Cruz County, Calif., and the tennis area at Brommer Street Park is overrun with dozens of people. But they aren’t here for tennis. Instead, cadences of pick-pock sounds fill the air as doubles players — many in their 50s and older — whack yellow Wiffle-like balls back and forth on eight minicourts.
This recreational craze, which has an estimated 2.8 million players nationally, has a quirky name: pickleball.
I stumbled across the game last summer, when I started coming to this park to hit the tennis balls around with my dad, who’s still nimble at 87.
Could this upstart racket sport, I wondered, be something my elderly father and I could enjoy together?
My dad has played tennis for fun, for most of his life, but he’s out of practice and slowing down. And with my bum knee and elbow tendinitis, I haven’t played much tennis since high school. He’s still better at the game, though I’m quicker on my feet; we both spend a lot of time trudging around to retrieve wayward balls.
