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Illustration by Erick M. Ramos
In a recent game of pickleball, my teammate and I were trailing far behind our opponents. It was her turn to serve. We were both standing behind the baseline, paddles up in ready position, when she nodded at me and said, “In it to win it.”
“Really?” I glanced at her, surprised by her use of a catchy expression that was new to me. Instinctively, I resisted even the tiniest suggestion that we should be trying to win the game. In my life off the pickleball court, I steer clear of competitive sports, preferring pilates, yoga, folk dancing – anything but games with winners and losers. Maybe I’ve sublimated my competitive instinct into something more personally suitable, like making matzo ball soup. The truth is I never aspired to be an ace athlete like my older brother, Les, who was a champion handball player in his day. His athletic acumen certainly did not rub off on me. While he spent his free time working out on a recumbent exercise bike at the gym, I spent mine reading books. I assumed that never the twain shall meet.
Unlike Les, I have always preferred to be a spectator rather than a participant in the world of sports. I was once a teenage cheerleader for a junior baseball team and have remained a keen booster on the sidelines. Regardless of the sport my children and grandchildren are playing – baseball, hockey, basketball, tennis, squash, soccer, competitive swimming or marathon running – I am all eyes on them with not even a magazine in hand to divert my attention. I have a voluminous collection of blurry photos capturing kids on ice, soccer pitches, baseball diamonds and in swimming pools. Often I can’t distinguish which child is mine. But I continue to document these events anyway in order to reassure myself that I am still the rah-rah cheerleader I always was.
Then pickleball came along. Suddenly, I didn’t want to be an observer any longer. I wanted to be a player myself. This seismic change caught me off-guard. Like many people, I was first drawn to the game simply as a safe COVID-19 activity. Playing pickleball allowed me to break out of the suffocating social isolation and lethargy I was feeling. I began playing outdoors with people in my neighbourhood because we could practise social distancing on the court and wear masks if we wanted to chat afterward. Of course, we were not alone. At parks, gyms and sports clubs across North America, thousands of people turned to pickleball for the same reasons. COVID undoubtedly contributed to the explosion in pickleball’s popularity. But my addiction to the game stems from the sport’s low barrier for entry. I felt a measure of success on the court soon after I began to play. Little wonder that everyone and your grandmother can now be seen lobbing a green, orange or yellow plastic ball with holes in it across a net. The gear isn’t particularly expensive. It’s a relatively easy game to learn, and a participant doesn’t need to be especially strong, tall or fast, although, I’ll be honest, all three attributes would come in handy.
Before you discount pickleball as an old person’s game, think again. The average age of players is actually dropping. Yet, it’s also true that for seniors the game is particularly seductive. A superb 80-year-old player recently told me, “I’ve always been a competitive guy. Pickleball is the last game I can play and win.” I understand his point, but it doesn’t apply to me. Pickleball is the first game I’ve ever wanted to win. Chalk it up to the adrenaline rush that I experience when I hit an unreturnable ball down the middle of the court and score a point. Participating in a sport myself rather than cheering for others provides tangible proof that I can still work hard to achieve goals. And I can improve. I no longer feel that I have to be a perpetual beginner, apologizing endlessly for rookie mistakes. I have learned to run up to the non-volley zone line as quickly as possible, but not to step into that zone to hit a ball without a bounce. I let balls flying over my head go out of bounds. Above all, I worry less about wrecking the game of better players on the court with me. I remind myself I’m not giving a dinner party in which I am responsible for everyone having a good time. I don’t have to worry that I’ve overcooked the salmon.
So, I’ve made a long-term commitment to playing pickleball. I even bought new court shoes. I am embracing the game as my pickleball buddies embrace me. I’d forgotten how much fun it is to socialize while doing something active. In that playful space of the court, I am gradually confronting my fears of winning and losing, perhaps because the stakes are so low. Thankfully, pickleball is not an Olympic sport. At least not yet. In the meantime, the novelty of undertaking something outside of my comfort zone feels magical. I wonder what contests I might be bold enough to enter next.
Why did it take me so long to get here? I suspect that my brother Les is my behind-the-scenes change agent. For decades he lived for handball, but then he became bedridden. When Les couldn’t play, he lost the propulsive force that energized him, and he gave up. Having watched him play handball numerous times, I’m convinced he has passed the baton to me. In an ironic, unpredictable twist of circumstances, I’ve become the athletic one playing for both of us. I can still see the sweat dripping from his silver hair, his feet darting from wall to wall on the handball court, chasing that small rubber ball which turned his gloved hand black and blue. He used to go to two different handball venues on the same day. I, too, occasionally do that to play more pickleball, no doubt following in his footsteps.
But I think my pickleball passion is also connected to growing old. The morass of loss that comes with aging can certainly be depressing. For me, pickleball is an antidote to that sinking feeling. Those 15-minute segments on the pickleball court temporarily distract me from the pain of my brother’s death and the threat of my own physical decline. I am able to focus instead on what my teammate told me when we were trailing far behind in our pickleball game. Get in it to win it. And we did.
Gail Benick lives in Toronto.