The familiar line “we’d never heard of pickleball” was true for us when we first saw it being played in Apache Junction, Arizona in 1998. Being new to the snowbird community, we were looking for things to do and pickleball looked like fun, so we started playing and were soon addicted.

Wanting to be able to play back home too, in September 2002 we started a small group. I would make calls (no texting!) each week to ensure we would have enough players for 2 courts. At that time, our nephew Mike Humbke was teaching at IV Macklin school and was familiar with pickleball through his gym program, so he enabled us to use the school gym one night a week. No pickleball court lines on the floor, so we used the badminton lines!

Unfortunately for the group, our life routine would take us to Abbotsford in late October for several weeks before heading back to Arizona, and no one in the group was willing to take charge/make calls to ensure enough were coming each week to enable play, so after attempting that program for 3 or 4 years in the fall, we gave up. But before long we heard of a group starting at the College, so we met the Atkinsons.

As a side note, because we loved pickleball so much, our grandchildren learned to play when they were pretty young, and when Jakob was 24, he was recognized on the Abby Pickleball Facebook Page as the longest playing pickleballer in Abbotsford at that time.