Blame or thank City Weekly for the pickleball explosion around Salt Lake
Small Lake City
By Bill Frost @bill_frost
In 2011, regular City Weekly contributor John Rasmuson began a series of opinion pieces spreading the gospel of pickleball. In all, he wrote about 98 of 'em—I don't recall the exact number, even though I was part of the editorial staff who had to proof them (office drinking was encouraged in those days).
Rasmuson may or may not be responsible, but pickleball has since blown up in Utah. There are now over 178 pickleball courts in the state, and Utah is the region most interested in the sport, according to KSL News. (It should be noted that the source KSL cited was a pickleball paddle company—there's a whole company for that?—conducting a Google Trends search.) For the pickleball uninitiated, here's the state of play.
Zooming in: Any random corporate cog can make a Google Trends search spit out any results they want. I know, because I'm a random corporate cog who performs Google Trends searches all the time. Need a spreadsheet that says Red Bull is great for toddlers? Done. Numbers that prove a 35-lane freeway expansion is a boon to local air quality? Coming right up. Evidence of astrology's legitimacy? Well ...
Catch up quick: Pickleball, as Rasmuson explained early on, is a great activity for older folks because it's less strenuous than tennis and more dignified than ping-pong. (OK, I added the second one—but am I wrong?) Back when Rasmuson began his crusade, there were only a handful of pickleball courts in Utah retirement communities and zero dedicated courts in Salt Lake City. Now, over 178.
Why it matters: It doesn't. Pickleball is a made-up sport akin to BASEketball, a baseball/basketball hybrid fabricated by South Park's Trey Parker and Matt Stone in the 1998 cinematic masterpiece of the same name. "The Minneapolis Lakers moved to Los Angeles where there are no lakes. The Oilers moved to Tennessee where there is no oil. The Jazz moved to Salt Lake City where they don't allow music," quoth the movie's narrator. It's not pertinent to pickleball, but it is funny.
But wait: "So seniors enjoy pickleball—what's the big deal, Mr. Rotating Opinion Crank?" Hey, I'm all for elders having other activities to enjoy besides writing paper checks at Maverik or spam-calling me to ask if I'm voting for [insert psychopath R-candidate here]. Unfortunately, my people—Gen Xers—have flooded the pickleball courts, and they're bringing the younger Gens with them.
The bottom line: If you're young enough to remember Kurt Cobain and Crystal Pepsi, get the hell off the pickleball courts! You still have the joints for it—play tennis, grunge graduates. Leave pickleball to the olds, as the Patron Saint of Paddles Rasmuson prophesied.
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