The rise of Pickleball on campus and beyond

BY BROOKLYN MCKINNEY

Feature Editor

As a former tennis player, Alan Voekle went to Tarleton State University’s Duck Camp for incoming students eager to meet friends with similar interests.

He had spent that summer on a small court with a plastic ball and paddle in hand, playing pickleball: tennis’ accessible and trendy sister sport. Voekle seemed to meet his match in TJ Bradberry, a fun-loving member of the Phi Kappa Sigma fraternity on campus who had discovered his passion for pickleball last year.

The only problem was that out of all the different organizations the school had to offer, a pickleball club was not one of them.

“Me and TJ had the idea of creating the club because we both—especially him, he’s really good at pickleball—thought it would be a really fun idea, and we were shocked at the beginning because no one created this,” Voekle said. “For such a big and growing sport, there was nothing here.”

They spoke with Abigail Wild, an assistant tennis coach at Tarleton who began hosting pickleball open-play nights for the Stephenville community at the Tarleton Tennis Facility last year.

“I started talking to her about starting an actual club here, and she thought it was a really good idea. So she put me in contact with Miss Kayla Ford, who is the club coordinator here, and she became the advisor for it and then helped us go through all of the steps to start it,” Bradberry said.

The Sports and Fitness Industry Association reports that pickleball participation has gone up by 45.8% since 2023, marking a 311% increase over the past three years.

Bigger cities have been seeing the effects of this craze already. In Fort Worth, Texas, alone, there are at least 19 active pickleball courts.

Several establishments like Chicken N Pickle, a restaurant that serves chicken and waffles overlooking outdoor courts, have opened several different locations around the country.

Sydney Lambert, another tennis enthusiast, became a member of Tarleton’s Pickleball club after hopping on the bandwagon.

“It’s really fun and easy to learn, so it was a really good activity that we could do during summer when there were courts, and it just brought us all together,” Lambert said.

With just a handful of consistent players and Lambert as the only girl, the pickleball club is looking forward to future growth and competitions.

“I’m a competitive person and I really want to test myself and see if I’m as good as I think I am. And I think playing other schools, other clubs and intramurals would be a really fun thing to do,” Lambert said.

While many active members bring the same competitive spirit to the court, the laughter ringing behind Tarleton’s recreation center from 7 to 9 p.m. is unmistakable.

“The best part is honestly teasing each other, because we all know each other outside the sport,” Voekle said. “So we kind of have personal banter, which is really fun and it makes the game more lively.”

The pickleball club welcomes all different skill levels on campus. Greg Neal, a brand ambassador for Diadem Sports, works with the club by providing paddles for players to demo or even purchase at a discount, so newcomers don’t have to worry about equipment.

With at least 10 active members from the school’s Reserves Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) program and over 90 followers on their Instagram page, @tsupickleball, their presence on campus already seems to be capturing interest.