FROM THE USAPA
PebbleCreek Pickleball Club
BY PAT MURPHY, PRESIDENT OF THE PEBBLECREEK PICKLEBALL CLUB, GOODYEAR, AZ, FOR 2017 AND USAPA TRAINING CHAIR
In the early‘ 90s a man named Ed Robson had a vision to build an Active Senior Adult Resort Community in the west valley of Phoenix, Arizona. At the turn of the century another visionary arrived here in Goodyear, Arizona. That visionary was Grover Lumbard, our founder and the first president of the PebbleCreek Pickleball Club. Grover and his wife, Cathy, moved to PebbleCreek from Seattle in 2004. He brought with him his love of a sport with a crazy name: pickleball. Through his efforts and the efforts of many other early pickleball pioneers, the PebbleCreek Pickleball Club was born in 2007, in Goodyear, Arizona. The first meeting of the club was called to order on January 24, 2007, although the club had no courts to play on. Grover started right away working to get courts here in PebbleCreek. After some pleading with the PebbleCreek HOA, he got approval to use the single basketball court located by the tennis courts. This single court became known as“ The Wall” due to its very small size. The players only had about 4 feet of space before hitting the wall.“ The Boys,” Larry Bergman, Dan Graville, Bob Herzig and Dave Bleau, became known as the“ Four Bloody Boys.” This came about because of the small size of the court and aggressive play that landed them into the wall. The big winner of many of those early pickleball games was The Wall.
Grover, with the help of our first member, Lou Ann Ashburn( known as“ The Pickleball Lady”), convinced Ed Robson to build some dedicated pickleball courts. With the plans approved, construction was started in early 2007 for four new pickleball courts. Early one day, Grover stopped by to check on the progress of the courts. Imagine his surprise when he saw a worker looking over blueprints for eight courts! He immediately called many club members over to show them and celebrate. On Nov. 18, 2007, the eight new pickleball courts opened. The very first players on the new courts were Walt and Betty Royle. It has been reported that they sneaked down to the courts around midnight, sleeping bags in hand, and spent the night. They got up, Betty made coffee, and at 6:15 a. m. they were the first club members to be playing on the new pickleball courts. Back in the days before our fancy computers, the club had to manually manage many of the club’ s activities like court reservation, while today it is all handled on the club’ s web page. Things were simple; they used a piece of paper as a signup sheet and it was posted at the courts. The problem was, erasers had become a useful tool for getting your name on the signup sheet— simply erase a name and put your name in. So the club solicited a club member to be the“ Lady in Charge” of the reservation signup sheet. Helen Hurley
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