The bar has been set in one of the nation’s fastest-growing sports, which is played by thousands of Lake County residents. And it isn’t in a good way.
A fracas involving some 20 people recently broke out at a Florida pickleball match. One expects brawling at a hockey game. Some fans are even disappointed when it doesn’t happen. College basketball games recently have turned into full-contact melees after hard fouls on the court.
But pickleball, that cult-like cross between tennis, ping-pong and badminton? Pickleball, which senior citizens and Gen Zers alike have been rushing to with relish?
The game has vexed some Lake County homeowners who have heard the incessant “pop, pop, pop” noise when the game’s modified Wiffle ball strikes a pickler’s paddle. From Lake Bluff to Libertyville, complaints have mounted from neighbors about the din from pickleball courts. Picklers have been known to mob courts, with matches known to start at dawn in some instances.
Local officials have been flooded with calls about players waking up public park neighbors from deep REM. Some have threatened to seek relief in courtrooms from the irritating happenings near their once-quiet homes. The sport’s outdoor phase should resume shortly.
Surprisingly, there hasn’t been more on-court violence around here. I haven’t heard of any battery charges emanating from the indoor courts, which have sprung up from Waukegan to Gurnee to Mundelein to Vernon Hills, and other points in the county.
Yet, violence on the pickleball courts happened at a genteel country club in a gated community in Port Orange, Florida, a seashore community of some 66,000 residents along the Atlantic Ocean, just south of the spring break mecca, Daytona Beach.
Then again, the pickleball spat occurred in the Sunshine State, where “Florida man” is the current petri dish for American trends. Or perhaps, Midwesterners are more courtly when it comes to playing the game.
Apparently, a heated pickleball match turned into a full-blown rumble, according to Volusia County authorities, who charged a Florida couple with felony battery charges. The fight got bloody as the teams composed of older picklers exchanged taunts after some players were accused of not playing by the rules, not being able to take the heat in the kitchen.
Next thing, authorities told media outlets, a 63-year-old player allegedly punched an opponent and then used his pickleball paddle as a weapon, whacking a 70-year-old in the face. The alleged assailant was arrested, as was his 51-year-old wife.
The wife joined the fray, allegedly attacking another septuagenarian who tried to break up the melee after he was decked by her husband. Authorities said the husband used his pickleball paddle as a “deadly weapon” to intentionally cause “great bodily harm, permanent disability, or permanent disfigurement” to the victim.
The couple has pleaded not guilty. They have a court date set for March 3.
Paramedics were called after several players in the scrum were bloodied in the donnybrook. One of the victims was transported to the hospital with a cut above an eye that may result in “permanent scarring”, authorities reported.
Usually, picklers suffer injuries from playing too hard. It’s not uncommon for players, mostly senior citizens or those over 50, to sustain knee, wrist, leg and shoulder injuries, along with fractures from falls, as matches become frenzied.
One estimate is that costs from pickleball injuries are nearly $400 million annually, with thousands of players heading to emergency rooms during and after games. Or being dispatched to hospitals via ambulance with injuries.
Inventors of the game, which has spread rapidly from its home base in the Pacific Northwest, certainly didn’t see fights breaking out when they first played it in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, sitting in the midst of Puget Sound, west of Seattle, as a summer diversion for their kids. From that humble beginning, pickleball has doubled-timed toward recreational sports dominance across the U.S.
That sticks in the craw of tennis players who have seen more and more of their public courts in area parks turned into pickleball uses to meet demand for the sport. Don’t equate tennis with pickleball unless you want to get in a pickle with members of the skort set.
While there is the Professional Pickleball Association, which sponsors tournaments where cash winnings are awarded to players, all that is needed now for the sport to gain stature is to become sanctioned for an upcoming summer Olympics, maybe Los Angeles in 2028. Although Olympic officials normally decry violence in their sports.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor. sellenews@gmail.com. X @sellenews.
