History
The only sport named for a dog was created by two families from Bainbridge Island, Washington, out of desperation.
One Saturday afternoon in the summer of 1965, when their children were complaining that there was nothing to do, Bill Bell and Congressman Joel Pritchard decided to teach them how to play badminton.
There was an asphalt-surfaced badminton court at Pritchard's home, but it hadn't been used in some time. The men set up the net and dug out some rackets, but they couldn't find a usable shuttlecock, so they decided to use a 3-inch whiffle ball instead.
But the ball proved too big for the rackets. Undaunted, Bell and Pritchard made four paddles of solid wood, which worked pretty well. The next step was allowing players to hit the ball on the bounce instead of having to volley, as required in badminton.
Badminton with a whiffle ball became tennis with a whiffleball the next day, when the net was lowered from 5 feet above the court to about 3 feet, allowing players to hit hard, low drives.
The following weekend, Bell and Pritchard introduced the new game to a friend, Barney McCallum, and the three of them devised the first set of rules. They started with the rules of badminton, incorporating some changes to meet the needs of the sport and the court. Because a player at the net had an immense advantage, they created a non-volley zone in front of the short service line, where volleying was not allowed. They also added a rule that each side had to hit at least one shot after the ball had bounced before any volleying was permitted during a rally. And, because a tree in one corner of the court might obstruct the server's delivery, they adopted a rule that a player could have one foot in front of the baseline when delivering a serve.
All they needed now was a name for their new sport. The Pritchards' cocker spaniel, Pickles, had become an interested spectator who would run off with the ball when it left the court. In his honor, badminton-tennis with a whiffle ball was named pickle-ball.
In 1967, Pritchard built the first "official" pickle-ball court in his backyard and a few other courts were built in and around Seattle over the next several years. Since pickleball could be played on a badminton court with a lower net, some schools and colleges in the area also incorporated the sport into their intramural programs.
Bell, McCallum, and Pritchard in 1972 formed the U. S. Pickle-ball Association (USPA), copyrighted the rules, and registered the name as a trademark. (The hyphen was later dropped.) They sent specifications and rules to any interested person or organization.
In 1984, the USPA was replaced by the United States of America Pickleball Association (USAPA), which has about 15,000 members, most of them in Washington state. The USAPA claims that about 100,000 participate in the sport. There are more than 30 registered courts in 12 states.
