Pickleball here to stay in Lincoln Parish

Editor’s Note: The following story was originally published in the summer edition of Lincoln Life magazine.

After an explosion in popularity in recent years, pickleball has made its way to Ruston and Lincoln Parish, offering a unique yet familiar sporting experience to players.

The racquets resemble those used in ping pong or tennis. The court dimension is double the size of badminton and yet a third of that for tennis.

It’s a sport all its own but eases new players in with an easy style of play.

And one thing’s for sure, locals are interested. Hard to ignore the fastest growing sport in America.

With courts at Squire Creek Country Club and the Ruston Sports Complex, or hand-drawn courts at Louisiana Tech, options to play have taken off in the parish since 2020.

From events at the Sports Complex, to the first prize-money tournament at Squire Creek for experienced players, the sport only looks to grow in Ruston in the coming years – one of many cities in deep with pickleball fever.

The 2023 Sports & Fitness Industry Association’s (SFIA) Topline Participation Report named pickleball as America’s fastest growing sport for the third year in a row, with participation almost doubling in 2022, increasing by 85.7% year over year and 158.6 percent over three years.

The report outlined 8.9 million players in the U.S. – up from 4.8 in 2022.

Of the 8.9 million total players, an APP ( Association of Pickleball Professionals) study estimated the number of players who play more than eight times in the year is 8.5 million.

The staying power is real. Just ask Scott Smith, Director of Tennis at Squire Creek.

“I started playing four or five years ago when I was still in Massachusetts and there was always a big crowd for it back then, and I just started playing pick up games,” Smith said. “So, once I moved here, I got certified to teach it.”

And he’s been busy on that front, offering classes to hundreds in Ruston to learn pickleball ever since.

“It’s funny, I feel like we’ve instructed half the city at times,” Smith said. “I mean probably close to 500 to 600 people.”

Smith came to Squire Creek in 2018 from Martha’s Vineyard where he was the Executive Director of Vineyard Youth Tennis, and saw the first signs pickleball wasn’t a fad.

If anything, it was potentially the next step after tennis or, for some, an all-out replacement.

Smith said pickleball benefits from having a smaller court than tennis, requiring less physical strain from players, while also keeping the fast- paced action of returning blows across the net.

Elderly players make up a majority of Smith’s prospective players, and the same goes for most players nationally.

Executive Director of Events for the Amateur Pickleball Association ( APA) Tom Davidson agrees with Smith’s assessment of the sport.

It’s not tennis, in all the best ways, and that attracts certain age demographics.

“Tennis is hard,” Davidson said. “You gotta run and you gotta hit and pivot harder, and pickleball is not an easy sport, but you don’t have to move quite as much.”

Growing the sport and selling its easy nature has been beneficial, but Davidson admitted the hope is the sport can begin to skew younger to continue national growth.

“I think for me it’s about growing the sport younger,” Davidson said. “In 2022, our average age of players was between 58-59. In 2023 so far, our average age has been between 49- 50 at our events. I think it’s a matter of having the ability to provide locations to hold events and show players we can meet them where they are.”

Davidson said the APA had 30 events in 2022 with over 2,100 players. Through May, they already have held 50 events over 2,100 players.

While the numbers weren’t as big for the APA event in Ruston April 22- 23, Davidson said the tournament was a success.

“I think places like the Ruston Complex are great when you can play inside, especially right now when it’s hot,” Davidson said.

Chris White, Ruston Sports Complex Supervisor, said close to 50 players attended the APA event in April, and he hopes more tournaments come through Ruston in the future.

And it’s precisely the reason the complex was built, to hold growing sports and tournaments in Ruston and allow community members a chance to be a part of it.

White hopes the APA or any other major pickleball organization comes back to Ruston in the future.

“It was a tremendous success for us, and so we started reaching out to that same organization again and they wanted to get some future dates,” White said.

Davidson, equally optimistic another event can make its way to Ruston in the future, said it will take increased awareness to grow the sport like they’d want.

“A large part of our success comes from large city venues because they have larger populations,” Davidson said. “But in a smaller location like Ruston, we’d probably need two or three events before it really takes off.”

Tisdale McDonald, a Ruston resident, has loved pickleball ever since she took it up after lessons from Smith at Squire Creek.

Along with her friends Peg Dawsey, Jennifer Terzia, Robin Burnham, and Rudy Rodgers among others, McDonald plays two to three times a week at the Sports Complex indoor courts, giving her a chance to combine social and athletic enjoyment in one.

McDonald said she used to play tennis but fell out of it over time. And once she heard about pickleball and gave it a try, she found her new hobby.

“I started playing with friends and I loved it and it’s such a fun, easy game to pick up,” McDonald said. “You meet all kinds of people, and the playing field is so open. You don’t have to be young to play. Age doesn’t really matter.”

McDonald has heard from Smith that Squire Creek plans to build fulltime pickleball courts while the Sports Complex offers her group blocked out time to play Tuesday and Thursday mornings.

“You know if they’re investing in it, it’s here to stay,” McDonald said.