Why Isn’t Pickleball In Your Name?

I get asked this all the time. I’m certainly not surprised by the question. If you come to any of our clubs, there’s an almost 100% chance it’s for pickleball. 

When I was daydreaming about a club built around a social sporting experience over ten years ago, pickleball wasn’t a central part of the plan. In short, I wanted any non-traditional sports which allowed our patrons to recreate, get a workout, compete, and hang out with (or make new) friends. 

The spark that led to RECS  began on a dry winter night at a park in North Portland in 1999, when some friends and I started kicking a soccer ball over a tennis net. We didn’t leave until we’d hammered out the basic rules for the sport we came to call “sonnis” (short for ‘soccertennis’). We loved it so much we kept playing, and others joined over the coming weeks, months, and years. We had such a devoted following that I put on a tournament. It was so popular, I did two more. You can watch the videos from the YouTube channel I created for The Rec Room.

It was around this time that I started hearing more chatter about pickleball, a sport which I had played a few times after college. I looked it up online and found Columbia River Pickleball Club right in my backyard. I joined and learned how to play at a park in Washougal, WA from Mike Wolfe, the Club President, Veteran, and retired firefighter. As I started playing, it didn’t take long to feel the same positive and radiant energy from this community as that of my sonnis tribe. The spinning wheels in my head kicked into high gear. I even made this video at a tournament for Columbia River Pickleball Club at Hathaway Park in Washougal (now the home of the appropriately named ‘Wolfe Courts’).

I fell down a rabbit hole looking for other such games and sports around the world that had passionate and dedicated communities, knowing that the glow people get from these experiences was a foundation to build something special upon. 

I found “Road Tennis” in the Caribbean, invented in Barbados in the 1930s.

I found “Sepak Takraw” in SE Asia, invented in Malaysia in the 15th century.

I found “Footvolley”, or “futvolei”, invented on the famed Ipanema beach in Rio, Brazil in 1965.

I found “Platform Tennis” and “Paddle tennis”, invented in NY in 1928.

And ‘Spikeball’ (AKA “roundnet”), invented in 1989 in the U.S., was becoming ubiquitous on college campuses around the U.S.

I learned that “sonnis” is just a variation of a game that goes by many names around the world, including, but not limited to — futnet, tennisballon, jokgu, nohejbal, foottennis… you get the idea.  

By the time we opened our first club in early 2022, the momentum of the pickleball zeitgeist was in full effect, and we were there for it. Almost five years later, it hasn’t slowed down. Pickleball is not a fad — it checks too many boxes for what humans need — “analog connectivity”, I call it. Especially in these strange times steeped in severe digital disconnection.  

Even with pickleball’s massive growth and market domination in N. America, other hybrid games and sports invented long ago are gaining meaningful traction, like padel (invented in Mexico in 1967), with new ones popping up; like Teqball, Typti, and Padbol (a mash-up of Padel and soccertennis).

Now that you hopefully understand better the origin story of Recreate – Exercise – Compete – Socialize, you may ask if pickleball will make way for some of these other games and sports at our clubs. Candidly, as long as we can feel the incredible positive energy in our clubs that comes from people experiencing wellness, fulfillment and joy through non-traditional games and sports, we will be honoring our Mission and celebrating it each and every day. 

Lastly, I want to thank all of you who have found a home at RECS. We know you have choices, and it means the world to us that you choose us as your home for Inspiring Good Sports ❤️

(for a glimpse of the precursor to RECS, check out www.instagram.com/recroompdx)