The History of the Game

The game of pickleball began in the summer of 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Joel Pritchard, a Congressman from the state of Washington and Bill Bell, a successful businessman, returned home after playing golf one Saturday afternoon. They found their families sitting around and complaining that they had nothing to do.

In the backyard Pritchard had a badminton court set up on an asphalt surface along with some rundown badminton equipment. He tried to collect a full set for his family to use but there were just too many damaged pieces. So, Pritchard and Bell cut off the damaged shafts of the racquets and found a perforated plastic ball as a replacement to the badminton shuttlecock. As their families began to play this new game the inventors noticed that the players had trouble using the smaller racquets on a 3-inch plastic ball. So in Pritchard's workshop the inventors created 4 new wooden paddles, which worked very well. The net, set at the regulation badminton height of 60 inches, forced the players to volley the ball (i.e., hit the ball while it is in the air). This was a problem that needed to be resolved. The next morning Pritchard and Bell awoke to screams of laughter. Yesterday's problem was easily solved. After realizing that the ball bounced well off the asphalt surface, the players reset the net at the regulation tennis height of 36 inches. Now the players could play a mini tennis game.

How did pickleball get its name? The name, pickleball, comes from the Pritchard's dog, Pickles. Pickles would hide in the bushes and chase down errant balls. You see it was Pickles' ball! And thus, pickleball was "born."

The following weekend Barney McCallum, a close friend, came out for a visit. After playing for a while, he too loved this game. It was then that Pritchard, Bell and McCallum decided to formalize the game with rules to make it a competitive sport for the entire family. Many of the rules came from badminton. Adding a few court modifications and some new rules greatly enhanced the game of pickleball.

A tree in one corner of the Pritchard's court forced the server to have one foot inside the court. So a rule allowing the server to have one foot inside the court was initiated.

The better players would position themselves right up at the net for an easy put-away. This problem was resolved with the creation of a non-volley zone. You could not enter the non-volley zone to hit the ball unless the ball bounced into the zone first.

Another problem was that the player serving usually won the point and rather quickly. The existing rules, like tennis, required the receiving team to let the serve bounce before hitting the ball. For the server it was serve, charge the net and put the ball away to win the point. It was just too much of an advantage! To give the receiving team an even chance to win the rally the "double bounce rule" was introduced. This rule now required the server, or serving team, to let the ball bounce before returning the return of serve. Now the rallies lasted much longer.

In the winter of 1967, Pritchard constructed the first permanent court in the United States.