In December, 2019 a timely visit to our local rec center provided us a look at what appeared to be some sort of life-size ping pong game for senior citizens. "What in the world is THAT?" I muttered. "THAT...is Pickleball" came the reply. Mental note taken, but life carried on as before.

March, 2020 the world shut down. My weekly commutes to Florida were a thing of the past, my wife saw her start-up company go under (after receiving a commitment to fund just one week earlier), and now after 20 years of balancing two careers, business travel, kid commitments, and general chaos, we were homebound. Remembering our discovery of Pickleball just two months earlier, we ordered a full pickleball set from Amazon, found an empty parking lot across the street and began smacking a yellow whiffle ball around for fun. It was instant love. Ignoring the fact we were clueless about strategy, rules and the crazy scoring system, we encouraged friends and family to try this "new" sport we had discovered. Our weekends turned into five, six, seven hour days playing, learning, and getting hooked on the sport. "Pandemic Picklers," we laughingly called it, but the stats back that term up - in the last two years Pickleball has grown over 39% and shows very little sign of slowing.

Today, we are charter members of the North Texas Pickleball Association and Southlake Paddle Club and we will continue our efforts to expand the footprint of this great sport ~ and while we're at it, let's wear some awesome gear, how 'bout it?