- April 22, 2024
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As a sprinkling rain falls around him, Warren Lewis watches from behind the green mesh that hangs from the fence that separates him from the tennis courts on this drizzly Sunday afternoon.
In front of him, over a dozen courts are packed with locals competing in the seventh annual St. Paddle’s Day Pickleball Tournament in Veteran’s Memorial Park in Winter Garden.
With each swing of a paddle, the sound of the neon-colored plastic balls pops loudly. To Lewis — who was competing in his third tournament — and the many in attendance, it was a symphony of sound that goes hand-in-hand with an ever-growing sport.
“It’s always a fun tournament, and it’s gotten bigger every year,” Lewis said. “This year, certainly, COVID has had many restrictions on it, but it has grown every year that we have been to it. The first year — actually, my wife and I played in it — we had only learned about pickleball five weeks before that, and we came out here and lost every game but we had fun. And now at least I’m winning a few more games.”
The tournament, which was put on from March 18-21, saw close to 400 pickleball athletes descend upon the park to compete. A big part of getting things up and running was thanks to the diligence of Winter Garden residents Dave Vander Weide and Kim Drury — the proverbial “godparents” of pickleball in the area, who started the tournament seven years ago.
At the gate, temperatures were checked and there was plenty of hand sanitizer to go around, while masks were required for anyone not playing on the court. It was all the hard work preparing for this tournament that made it happen while the COVID-19 pandemic still continues.
“This is the only non-city-sponsored activity they’ve let happen since COVID, because we had so much prep involved with what we were doing — with temperatures and all that,” Drury said.
Eleven years ago, Vander Weide was introduced to the sport of pickleball in The Villages, after some old friends invited him to play. Despite the silly name, Vander Weide didn’t realize what he had gotten himself into.
“I had never heard of this sport, so I went up there and played — they were all very good players — and I totally got destroyed, but I came away feeling good about it,” he said. “It seemed very interesting.”
Invigorated by his first experience with pickleball, Vander Weide came back to Winter Garden excited to play, only to find out that not many other folks did.
Vander Weide decided to take things into his own hands. For a while, he hosted a weekly clinic in Stoneybrook West — where he lives — and slowly built up a little group, which included Drury. From there, things grew quickly, and Vander Weide and his group moved things to Veteran’s Memorial Park — which ultimately led to the idea of a tournament.
“I went to the city and asked if we could do a tournament, and they said, ‘Yeah,’” Vander Weide said. “We took over all the tennis courts, we put 14 portable courts up, and we had 126 people there — the mayor came down and watched us and he goes, ‘Dave, we have to do something about this.’”
And the city did just that, as the following year, the city took away two tennis courts and put six pickleball courts in their place. That moment, Vander Weide said, is when things really began to change.
With the sport of pickleball utilizing a smaller court and a wiffle-like ball and most often played in doubles, the sport is much friendlier to those of different age groups and talent levels compared to that of tennis.
Though the game moves fairly fast given the smaller court, for some folks, it can be hard to look past the funny name and fact that it’s very popular among older athletes. That was the initial take of Winter Garden resident Keith Valentine, before his health and age caught up with him a little bit.
“When they were tearing down the tennis courts and I was watching them put this pickleball stuff up, I’m like, ‘What’s this? It looks like an old guy sport,’” said Valentine, 45. “And then I had my fourth knee surgery and I’m like, ‘I can’t run anymore, I can’t do this anymore.’
“Somebody bought me a gift certificate to Walmart, so I got a cheap pickleball set, and I started playing in my driveway with my kids and my wife and fell in love with it,” he said.
Since then, Valentine — who is referred to as the “Pickleball Pirate” thanks to the bandanna he wears during games — has fully immersed himself into the sport, and he even has a YouTube channel dedicated to pickleball.
And while the competition aspect of the sport is incredibly fun, for many — like Drury and Lewis — it’s as much about meeting people and growing friendships.
“It’s fun to play, but more than anything, my social friends are predominantly from pickleball,” Drury said. “We start out with (pickleball) as our base, and then we go on for there — whether we go have a refreshment or go to eat.”
