Pickleball is a widely known, popular sport that started gaining traction in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, the craze has moved from retirement homes to schools, and this includes Sentinel.
Sentinel offers many clubs outside of school athletics, which help with keeping students in touch and involved with their peers. The clubs can be athletic or academic, with their offerings ranging from a boxing club to Brain Bowl. The most recent addition to the plethora of clubs students can choose from is the Pickleball club.
Pickleball club is run only on Wednesdays by Spanish teacher, Daniel Lochridge and his wife, Lorie Lochridge.
Origins of Pickleball
1965
Pickleball has been around since the summer of 1965, created by Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell in Bainbridge Island, Washington, at Pritchard house.
They originally were just trying to find all of Pritchard’s badminton equipment, but could only find the badminton net. They improvised ping pong paddles for rackets and a plastic wiffle-like ball as a birdie.
They played this way for the whole week that they were up in WA, and they continued to lower the net as they figured out that the ball bounced nicely along the asphalt court. From there, the roots of pickleball as it’s known today were created.
1984
1984 was the sport’s first breakout year, with the United States Amateur Pickleball Association (USAPA) becoming an organization, recognizing the sport on a national level. USAPA made the first rulebook for the sport in March of the same year.
This was also the year that an official paddle for Pickleball was made by Arlen Paranto. He made it out of fiberglass and honeycomb panels. Paranto worked as a Boeing Industrial Engineer, meaning that the paddles were made with the same parts they use to make airplane structural systems.
2020/2021
The organization rebranded as it entered the new decade, going from USAPA to USA Pickleball. 2020 was also the year that every sport was put on pause because of the COVID-19 Pandemic. USAP had to cancel all of their professional tournaments for the spring, but that didn’t mean that people couldn’t play on their own. The social distancing required to play the sport made it perfect for people to follow health guidelines and stay active.
By 2021, USAP had over 53,000 members, with a 43% increase from just 2020 alone.
Pickleball Club At Sentinel
How the club came to be
The Pickleball club became an official club at Sentinel at the start of January, but it has been in the works since the fall.
Mr. Lochridge and his wife came up with the idea after playing pickleball one Sunday morning at the local YMCA.
Lochridge recalls that “some young kids came in [to play] and [Mrs. Lochridge said, ‘Why don’t we do that at Sentinel?’”.
While it was all his wife’s idea, Lochridge was in full support, considering he himself has been playing Pickleball for the last two years.
Since the only pickleball courts near the school are at Playfair Park, the same courts that the Tennis team uses after school for their practices, the club has made makeshift courts on the balconies above the main gym.
Over winter break, Lochridge and his wife took the time to “[measure] out all the lines and [lay] down duct tape for the lines” at the school so that the club would be ready to start right after break was over.
Popularity within the school
Due to it being a brand new club halfway through the school year, the number of people who show up every Wednesday fluctuates.
Lochridge noticed that it depends on the week on how many people show up, saying that “we’ve had as few as 2 or 3 [to] as many as 20-25”.
Even though the number of people fluctuates, there is a regular “[sophomore] [who] has been to every single one of [the meetings]”.
It’s very possible, given how the sport has been reaching younger audiences in the past few years, that the club will grow to have a more efficient, steady number of people every week by next school year.
Future Plans
As of right now, the club will continue to play on the balconies, but there is a possibility that this will change.
In the fall, Lochridge will have to take a step back from being involved with the club for the season because he is the head coach of the girls’ soccer team, meaning his wife will take full control of the club.
Mrs Lochridges plans are to “try and [play as] much over at Playfair on the pickleball courts [as possible]”.
The club will also start right back up by the second week of school, optimizing the nice weather that September usually has to be able to play outside.
It’s unclear right now if the other two AA high schools (Big Sky and Hellgate) will have a pickleball club, but if they do, Lochridge wouldn’t be opposed to holding matches against them, thinking that would be “really fun”.
He can also see the club becoming competitive “down the road”, but for right now, “it’s just for fun”.
The fast-growing popularity of pickleball has touched many people around the world, including Sentinel. The Lochridges have given Sentinel a great addition with the Pickleball club, providing kids a new outlet to get active and enjoy the company of their peers without the stress of competition.
