Pickleball Mania Hooks Players of All Ages and Skills in Northern Michigan

It's definitely not just tennis for old people

According to a 2022 report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America, with 4.8 million players nationwide, up 40 percent from 2020.

Northern Michigan is one of the hotspots for the sport, and was in fact one of the very first places where pickleball took hold outside its origin state of Washington. Gary Ford, eventual founder of the Traverse Area Pickleball Association (TAPA), began playing in the 1980s, long before many of us had even heard of the tennis-badminton-ping-pong hybrid.

“For a long time, there was only one supplier for pickleball equipment when we started playing,” Ford says. “And every time we ordered balls or paddles from them, we’d ask them, ‘Is there anybody else in our state playing?’ … And he says, ‘No, you’re it.’ So we were the first people to play in Michigan. And we’ve come to learn that we may be the first area in the country outside of Seattle to take up the sport.”

Short on Courts
It took decades for the sport to catch on, not just in NoMi but around the country. Part of that, at least in our neck of the woods, was simply based on court availability. Ford began playing on a friend’s court at Torch Lake, then in the parking lot of the Grand Traverse Yacht Club, and eventually on courts at the YMCA that had to be specially lined and then unlined for each game.

It took years—and a fair amount of fundraising—to get dedicated courts at the Y, which began with striping basketball courts and then some of the indoor tennis courts. Suffice to say, court time was scarce.

“Our debate for a while was, since we had so few courts, we didn’t know if we wanted to invite more people to play and wake up one morning and not have the ability to get on our courts,” Ford explains. “So we were kind of unsure whether to grow the sport or just enjoy it ourselves. Eventually, we decided to share with other people, and then the sport started getting picked up by other people around the state and around the country.”

The big shift locally happened when the YMCA opened its new west-side facility. Ford says that afforded TAPA the opportunity to negotiate to convert the old facility into more space for pickleball, which now offers six indoor courts. Outdoor courts are a bit easier to come by—like at the Boardman Valley Nature Preserve, Slabtown Dog Park, and Grace Macdonald Park—but, of course, can only be used part of the year.

Glen Arbor faced similar growing pains throughout the last decade. Ron Calsbeek, a tennis player turned pickleballer, serves as the chairman of the Glen Arbor Park and Recreation Board. He says sport’s official start was somewhat inauspicious.

“We eventually arranged to have pickleball courts taped on the floor of the Town Hall [gymnasium], and people began playing there. We had three courts in that little Town Hall, but they were four feet shorter than the regulation pickleball court without that much back court. So it was kind of an unsafe situation.”

Growing demand prompted the parks and rec board to seek better solutions. Soon, the Leelanau School’s gym was lined for three regulation courts, and the school’s outdoor tennis courts got a pickleball makeover too. By the time the parks’ five-year planning session came around, a public survey made it clear more pickleball space needed to be made available.

That led to the installation of three dedicated outdoor courts at the Glen Arbor Township Park.

“Those courts are among the most desirable courts…people love playing pickleball in that setting, and they’re beautiful courts,” Calsbeek says. “As you can imagine, the addition of those courts then brought more and more attention to the game.”

Big on Growth
Calsbeek says that roughly 100 people take to the courts each day during the summer season, and play has to be limited to one hour per day to keep up with the 20-30 players waiting at any given time. Winter is a slower season—Calsbeek says the Leelanau School courts are mostly used by locals when visitors and snowbirds depart.

In the TC area, Ford estimates those summer numbers are quadrupled, with 400 folks playing on any given day. And according to Grand Traverse Bay YMCA President Andrew Page, the organization sees 350-400 pickleball visits weekly during cold weather months. Grand Traverse Resort and Spa sees smaller numbers—only 36 players per week—but is now offering open play three times per week (Monday, Thursday, and Friday), learn-to-play classes, and daily court rentals.

No matter how you slice it, the sport is trending up. TAPA now boasts a membership of 250+ players, many of whom are making the switch from other racquet sports.

“There’s no doubt that pickleball is growing more rapidly than tennis,” Calsbeek says. He adds, however, that for folks who think pickleball is stealing tennis players or killing the big-court sport, “the appearance is deceptive.”

“I don’t think tennis is dying,” Calsbeek says. “The number of people playing tennis outnumbers the number of people in the nation playing pickleball by something like three to one. But pickleball is growing so rapidly that that’s a statistic that’s probably going to change.”

When it comes to folks making the switch, Ford thinks the choice is obvious. “If you play tennis and if you play pickleball, pickleball is more fun than tennis,” he says matter-of-factly, noting how many folks can get a better workout and longer points with pickleball.

Ready for More
Ford points to how pickleball has exploded this year thanks to major network coverage, growing professional leagues, and celebrities taking up the game. It’s even the topic of a new play from Jeff Daniels—titled simply, Pickleball—that debuted at Daniels’ Purple Rose Theatre Company in Chelsea this summer. Ford predicts that there will be youth leagues starting up around the country, and that one day soon we’ll see pickleball added as an Olympic sport.

The narrative of the sport has certainly done a 180. What began as a quirky country-club-esque activity grew into a popular game for older racquet sport players in the last few years. But now, the age barrier is breaking down as more young people come to the sport.

“Pickleball had a reputation, originally, as sort of a sport for old people,” Ford says. “And while some of the original people playing the sport tended to be 50 or older…the demographics now are going lower and lower every year. When younger people are exposed to the sport, they end up loving it because they can play at any level.

“We had a young woman who’s a very high-level tennis player who played in our tournament this summer, and she got absolutely hooked,” he continues. “She just said, ‘My friends were telling me not to go over to the dark side.’ But, you know, she just absolutely loved it.”

With more players comes the need for more courts, and both Calsbeek and Ford say there’s plenty of demand for more courts across the North.

Glen Arbor is wrapping up another community survey for their parks and recreation department. Calsbeek says that while there is pressure for more courts, the parks board will be selective about where they go.

“There is strong sentiment to keep [Glen Arbor Township Park] as it is,” he explains. “Some people have said, really quite eloquently, that the beauty is it’s not a pickleball center, and it’s not a tennis center, and it’s not a basketball center. It’s not a children’s play center, but it includes all of those things, and they all have an important part in the park. And none of them should be sacrificed for any of the others.”

One solution could be looking outside the heart of Glen Arbor for space. Calsbeek mentions Myles Kimmerly Park between Glen Arbor and Maple City as an opportunity to take the pressure off the downtown courts, especially in the peak of tourism season.

Meanwhile, Ford mentions TAPA is supporting efforts for new outdoor pickleball courts at Bowers Harbor Park on Old Mission Peninsula, at Traverse City Christian Schools, and in Green Lake Township. He adds that Herman Park in Suttons Bay, which already has four courts, is looking to add four more in spring of 2023.

When it comes to indoor courts, opportunities are scarcer, but Ford is hopeful the newly-approved Kmart development in Acme will come to fruition with six indoor courts. Because at the end of the day, he knows the game will only continue to grow.

“It’s just a huge amount of fun at whatever age you are,” he says.

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