From playful trash talk to deeper conversations, pickleball paved my father and me a path to a stronger relationship through the pandemic.

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A little healthy trash talk has become the norm for texts between my dad and me ever since we started our perpetual pickleball matchups. It is a far cry from the loop of “how was work?” “fine” back-and-forth that dominated our conversations before.

After the lull of the pandemic left me as the only child at home with not much to do except twiddle my thumbs, I decided it was time to work on building my relationship with my dad beyond just the minimum. It was my time to solidify myself as not only the favorite (only) girl, but child.

So, I thought, where to start?

My dad is a sports guy. I wouldn’t say I am not a sports girl, but I am definitely not my three-sport, high school quarterback, college baseball playing brothers. Sports, let’s start with sports.

I wasn’t going to play him in my sport, volleyball, since I did not want to see him in that outfit. And I also wasn’t going to play him in his sport either, wrestling, because, again, the outfit.

We needed something simple, free, and where he wasn’t in Spandex.

Enter: Pickleball.

I had originally only heard of pickleball as the hobby that caused my Grandpa Curt to pull his Achilles tendon in his Wednesday night league down in Arizona. I thought it was just that, a hobby for snowbirds who get too competitive.

But, when I saw our town was building some courts in a park remodeling project, I thought maybe us younger folk could give it a try.

So, we bought some cheap Play-It-Again sports paddles, a couple balls, and got out there.

A few hits back and forth and the competitive genes that were passed from Grandpa Curt, to my dad, down to me were in full swing. We were hooked.

Before we knew it, our whole family was into it. Every family gathering, every holiday, there is a bracket. This year the winner got a jar of pickles with a golf ball (?) glued to the top, classic Grandma Junebug. From my 60-year-old uncle Scott down to my little cousin Jenny, everyone plays.

My family is among the millions of Americans who have gotten the pickleball-bug. Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in America, with a 223.5% increase since 2020, according to the SFLA Topline Participation Report. Minnesota alone has over 1,000 places to play listed on the PickleHeads court finder app.

This rise of pickleball post-pandemic didn’t just come out of left court.

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg talked about the importance of “third places” in our lives, those spaces outside of home and work that bring people together. Those places largely disappeared during the pandemic, leaving many of us searching for a sense of community. As life eased back to normal, people began looking for something beyond work or their homes–a new place to gather.

Whether it be because it only takes a ball, paddle and flat surface, because all ages were able to get out on the court or because it’s just fun to smash a ball in your dad’s face, people began flocking to pickleball. And it just kept growing. The accessibility of the sport made it the perfect “third place.”

Now there are thousands of leagues devoted to pickleball, open play sessions where you can just show up and play with people you have never met before and apps devoted to finding pickleball communities near you. Pickleball has given people a reason to get out of their work-home routine and into their community.

But, to me, pickleball is more than just a hobby, a sport or a third place.

It is the car ride to the court where my dad and I talk about our dreams for the future, his past life as a whitewater raft guide in Colorado and the nitty-gritty of what really happened at work that day.

It is that hour on Christmas where the only politics we discuss is how the two college baseball players got on the same team.

It is an excuse for me to trash talk my dad as much as I want, knowing it comes from a place of growth and love.

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