Pickleball keeps seniors active and fosters meaningful connections with younger generations (2024)

This story first appeared in Prestige - May 2024, a biannual special section distributed in The Gazette dedicated to Iowans 55+.

Build pickleball courts, and people will come.

“Even before the ribbon cutting there were a lot of people that would use it,” Chad Peterson said of the 10 courts opened at Jones Park last summer.

“There were plenty of mornings we would go down there and almost all the courts were in use,” said Peterson, who supervises maintenance of city parks in southwest Cedar Rapids. “We saw a pretty regular stream of users, even through the winter months.”

New or renovated courts are scheduled to open in mid-July in Iowa City, where a $1.1 million project will replace existing courts at Mercer and City parks, according to recreation supervisor Brad Barker. Mercer Park will have nine pickleball courts, while City Park’s tennis courts will be striped for pickleball play, giving the city 17 pickleball courts.

Even with such free options in city parks, the pickleball boom fueled largely by older Americans is providing the foundation for successful businesses and even neighborhood redevelopment.

“It’s been pretty great, pretty busy,” said Clay Torson, recreation manager at the Pickle Palace.

The 37,000-square-foot Palace just west of downtown Cedar Rapids anchors the Kingston Yard mixed-used development. Opened in January, its four indoor and two outdoor courts are the centerpiece of three stories of dining, drinking and recreational space.

“Weekends are always about completely full, Friday night through Sunday night when we close,” Torson said. “Weekday nights are usually completely full.”

After the Westfield Tennis Center in southwest Cedar Rapids closed due to damage sustained in the August 2020 derecho, the facility’s new owner made pickleball a focus, adding a dozen courts. The rebranded Smithfield Tennis and Pickleball Center opened its six outdoor courts, lighted and surrounded by greenspace, last August.

“Probably the best outdoor courts in the state, with the lighting and the distancing (between courts),” said Rusty Graf, who manages Smithfield with his wife Kathy Anderl. “This will be our first real summer with it.”

For a sport invented nearly 60 years ago in Washington State, pickleball experienced slow, gradual growth until the past decade or so. It was the nation’s fastest-growing sport for the third year in a row in 2024, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association after growing more than 50 percent from 2022 to 2023. The Association of Pickleball Professionals estimates 36.5 million Americans play the game.

Playing on a badminton-sized court with the net 34 inches high at the center, pickleballers volley a plastic ball with composite or wooden paddles about twice the size of ping-pong paddles. New players can learn the basic rules quickly in a single session, and equipment is inexpensive.

“It seems like a sport with a relatively low cost of entry,” said Harrison March, community engagement coordinator for the Heritage Area Agency on Aging. “You get that paddle and that ball, and you’re good to go.”

Graf estimates 70 percent of the center’s 3,500 members are there for pickleball. Members get a discount on the center’s $5 per-person hourly court fee (that’s $20 for doubles).

Palace court fees are $30 an hour Monday-Thursday, $10 higher Friday-Sunday, with discount rates for members.

Played by all ages, the game is particularly popular in school physical education programs and in adult living communities.

“The mental part of it matters, too,” Harrison said. “It’s a chance to learn something new — the skills, the strategy.”

“A lot of the older people end up playing with the younger people,” Graf said. “That’s where the difference between tennis and pickleball is really immense. The difference in ages doesn’t matter. A grandchild can play with a grandparent and have no problem.”

Pickleball offers more than a fitness-building activity. It’s a reason to get together with friends — and make new ones.

“We love to see it because it’s a sport you have to play with at least one other person,” March said. “That social aspect is at least as important as the fitness one.”

“After that hour lesson they can play, even if they’ve never played before,” Anderl said. “They make friends extraordinarily quickly. The connections in society are starting to erode, but they can come to pickleball and make friends, and they’ve got a social group.”

The boom brought many opportunities for older Iowans to join in. City recreational programs offer free or low-cost lessons, and Smithfield and the Pickle Palace keep the cost of entry low.

“Lessons are very, very popular,” Graf said. “It’s not like tennis, where if you really want to excel you have to take lots and lots of lessons.”

After about 45 minutes with an instructor, novices get 45 minutes of play, all for $10. Paddles are provided free for the first session.

“Learning the rules is probably the tougher part of it, learning the rules, learning the scoring, how to play and how to position yourself,” Torson said. “Once you figure it out a time or two, you can start to get better and better.”

Paddles are provided for the Palace’s Intro to Pickleball sessions, held three days a week for $8.

Once a player gets the hang of it, the game offers a reason to get together with friends for a casual game.

“You get people who drop in and see other people and they say, ‘Let’s go play because it’s free and there’s a court available,’” Graf said. “You get to meet a lot of other people.”

League and club play is often organized by USA Pickleball’s player ratings from 1.0 (“just starting to play pickleball and has no other sports background”) to 5.5 “(a top-caliber player” with tournament wins). But new players needn’t feel reluctant about signing up for league or club play.

“Three weeks prior to our first mixed doubles league starting, I had taught two couples how to play the game, and three weeks later joined our mixed doubles’ league,” Torson said. “They didn’t do too bad — finished in the middle of the pack.”