In April 2020, a few weeks after Washington’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” mandate went into effect, Todd Wine and his friends headed to a vacant school parking lot in Ballard to do something a little out of bounds: play pickleball.
Wine had just received a net for his birthday and was aching to try the quintessentially Northwest sport sometimes described as “giant pingpong.” The issue? Sport clubs and courts around the city were locked down. So, paddles (and beer Koozies) in hand, Wine and his friends plotted out the lines of a pickleball court on the asphalt with white gaffer tape and started hitting the customary perforated plastic ball. The surface wasn’t perfectly smooth, but the ball bounced just fine — and Seattle Guerrilla Pickleball was born.
This was half a century after the game itself emerged, invented in a backyard on Bainbridge Island in the summer of 1965. Three dads came up with the game — basically, a spin on tennis and pingpong using a whiffle ball on a badminton-sized court — to keep their kids entertained. The sporty innovation (named after the Pickle Boat in rowing, for which oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats, although some claim a family dog named “Pickles” had something to do with it) took off and became a beloved Northwest summer pastime.
Now, the sport is booming, with demand for courts surging and big money flowing into pro pickleball, TV deals and gear. And, if Senate Bill 5615 succeeds this year in the Washington Legislature, pickleball could even become Washington’s official state sport.