Throughout the past couple of years, the sport described to people as "small tennis" or "big ping pong" has solidified its name as one of the most popular sports in the U.S.: pickleball.
Over the last three years, the sport has grown by 223.5% and has an estimated 36.5 million players in the country. Since the number of pickleballers has skyrocketed, student demand to include the sport at ASU was definite. Currently, there are multiple opportunities on campus for students to get involved regardless of their experience.
Nathan Tang, a sophomore studying business, has pioneered the sport on campus.
Last spring, he and some upperclassmen decided that the University needed a place to play organized pickleball. Together, they created the Pickleball Club at ASU, which allows students to get out and have fun playing pickleball with fellow Sun Devils.
Tang, the co-founder and president of the club, said that they host open plays from 5 p.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursdays at the Sonora tennis courts in Tempe, and the usual turnout is about 60-80 students. He said there are about 440 members signed up through Sun Devil Sync, but because joining on Sun Devil Sync isn't a requirement for members to show up, there are probably between 500 and 600 unique members. He described this as the social club versus the actual club sport.
"The courts are distinguished based on skill," Tang said. "So the far right courts are going to be the beginners, the new players, then it's more intermediate, and then advanced. So basically, you have four courts going the entire night, all recreational games, and it is played at your own pace."
As of this spring, pickleball is also an official club sport at ASU, and Tang is its president and founder. The team practices on Mondays and Wednesdays at a facility in Chandler called Pickleball Kingdom. The club funds the facility's memberships.
These sessions entail more than just games; they practice, run drills, prepare for tournaments, and even run a mock tournament. The club team has about 30 members who were chosen out of the 60 to 70 students who tried out.
The team plays in tournaments all around the southwest in Arizona, California, Nevada and Utah.
Zocelyne Kow, a student studying biological sciences, is one of the 30 people on the club team. She started playing pickleball not too long ago and is now involved in both the social club and the club sport.
She said her favorite part of being involved in the social club and the club sport was the people. There are people of all different ages and skill levels.
"There is a lot of people on the club team and just the club in general who've made friends that are going to be roommates because of pickleball, or just forever friends," Kow said.
Another way to start getting into pickleball is through the University's intramural sports program. Although not all campuses offer it every semester, the Downtown Phoenix campus offered it for the first time last spring and again this spring.
As pickleball continues to take over the sports world, the intramural side follows the same trend, only becoming more popular.
To experiment, the sports program coordinator of the downtown Sun Devil Fitness Complex, Chris Johnson, decided to host a pickleball tournament last spring. Attendance was low, with only eight participants, but then word started to spread. When the actual intramural play started, not just a tournament, there were 30 participants, and now, this spring, there are 65 participants in intramural play.
"There was a lot of demand for it (pickleball)," Johnson said. "Different people kept playing around town, and it wasn’t really something we did in our building, so we wanted to bring that into our space and offer students the opportunity to play it. There was a lot of feedback from students that they knew about the game but never really had an opportunity to play."
Johnson said that it has exceeded expectations in popularity, and the people who play aren't too competitive; they've heard about the sport and want to give it a try. He said that's an aspect of competition he enjoys where people aren't heavily concerned with wins and losses but want to try something new with their friends.
Edited by Vinny DeAngelis, Walker Smith and Grace Copperthite.
Reach the reporter at hjsmardo@gmail.com and follow @HenryJSmardo on X.
Like The State Press on Facebook and follow @statepress on X.
Henry is a junior studying journalism and mass communication. This is his third semester with The State Press. He has also worked as a sports reporter.
