The popularity of pickleball in Ohio, like seemingly everywhere else, is increasing rapidly, with more and more courts popping up all the time.
The Recreation and Parks Department in Columbus, for example, now oversees 118 indoor and outdoor courts in 35 locations. Cleveland has an active pickleball scene, where websites devoted to steering prospective pickleballers include ratings of courts and constantly updated news. In Cincinnati, 26 new courts were added just this spring at Sawyer Point Park, which is now a stop on the Professional Pickleball Players national tour.
But the claim to being Ohio’s pickleball capital may well belong to Middletown, and the credit for that acclaim goes to resident Stanley Volkens. “He’s the reason we have pickleball here,” says Michell Cook, board member of the Middletown Pickleball Association.
According to USA Pickleball, there are 8.9 million pickleball players across the nation, as of February 2024.
Volkens discovered pickleball when he began to spend winters in Arizona. He fell in love with the sport and played daily. But when he returned to Middletown he was dismayed to find nary a court — not a single one.
After driving around Middletown and finding 17 empty tennis courts, Volkens saw his opportunity; he gathered some friends and made a case to Middletown’s Parks Department, which agreed to dedicate space to the activity, and Volkens started recruiting Middletown residents old and young as soon as courts became available. That was nearly 20 years ago.
Now in his 90s, Volkens stopped playing the sport only a year or so ago, but the Middletown Over 50 pickleball tournament that he founded, one of the first such organized tournaments (if not the first) in the state, will be played for the 17th year in August.
Cook, who serves as the tournament’s director, says that more than 300 players from eight states had registered to play by April. “When registration closes we’ll have about 400 players,” she says. “Next year we’ll have nine more courts built, so the tournament will be even bigger.”
Pickleball is sometimes thought of as a sport for senior adults. It is, but it’s not just your grandfather’s game. Cook often sees kids playing with their parents. In fact, pickleball is taught in physical education classes in Middletown’s public schools.
“The No. 1-ranked female player in the world is 17 and the No. 1-ranked male player is 24,” Cook notes.
Miami University in Oxford is among the many colleges that have added pickleball courts to their student recreation centers. The pickleball facility Pickle Lodge in Westchester hosts tournaments for college students, drawing players from schools in several states.
“We have former professional football, basketball, hockey, and baseball players playing on our courts,” Cook says. But because pickleball is played at different levels, a person doesn’t have to be a good athlete to enjoy playing it. Cook describes herself as proof of that.
“I am the most unathletic person,” she admits. “When I was a child, my mom signed me up for every team that you didn’t have to try out for, just to get me out of the house.”
When Cook moved from Mason to Middletown, she had no idea what pickleball was. A friend who is an avid pickleball player got her interested in the sport. “I started playing and fell in love with it,” she says. “It’s easy to learn and it’s addictive.”
Her demanding job as a special education paraprofessional with the Middletown Public Schools limits her to playing pickup games during summers. She serves as director for two other pickleball tournaments.
“I love the atmosphere around pickleball and how it brings people together,” she says. “It’s the most social sport.”
What is pickleball?
- Pickleball is played on a badminton-sized court with a 34-inch net in the center. Either one or two players per side use composite or wooden paddles about twice the size of ping-pong paddles to volley a perforated plastic ball. Games are played to 11, but the winning side must win by at least 2 points.
- Pickleball was invented in 1965 by three Seattle-area residents using an old badminton court in their suburban backyard.
- There are pickleball venues in every U.S. state and Canadian province — likely spots include senior residence communities, YMCAs, community recreation centers, schools, and parks. USA Pickleball maintains a comprehensive list at www.places2play.org.
- According to USA Pickleball, there were 4.8 million players in 2021; as of February 2024, that number had grown to more than 8.9 million.
