FROM THE USAPA did this for more than a year, monitoring and posting the day’ s schedule before any players got on the courts. Communicating and keeping all our members up‐to-date can be a huge task. Back in the beginning Grover saw the need to keep all members informed about the club. Our first article was written for the PebbleCreek Post back in 2007 by Pancho Epstein. He has been writing articles and tidbits for the club ever since. Pancho became known as“ The Scribe” and the person behind our bi-monthly Dr. Dink articles. His humor and editorial wit toward the game of pickleball has been very enlightening and enjoyable over the years. Today we have many of our club members writing and helping with communicating the many activities and happenings that are constantly taking place in our club.
In the early days, Grover was about
If there is a Pickleball Heaven, we are living in it at PebbleCreek. the only person who had played the game of pickleball, so he solicited the help of other pickleball pioneers who lived in the Phoenix area. He invited Bob Lanius, Don Miller and Earl Hill to visit our club. They helped explain the rules and introduced the game of pickleball to many of our club members. They brought samples of the various types of pickleball paddles and balls.
To help with the training the club started a beginner / novice training program for its members. The club’ s very first training instructors were Lou Ann Ashburn, Virginia Troester and Art House. After almost nine years, Art House is still going strong and is still the person in charge of Novice Training. Today we have weekly training classes, along with skills and drills. Our 35 trainers are busy helping and training many members to improve their pickleball skills.
It is now 2017, 10 years later, and Grover’ s vision of our community enjoying this crazy game called pickleball is truly a reality. Little did he know how fast and how big it would become here in PebbleCreek. The club now has 1,255 active club members. It may be the largest pickleball club in the USA. It continues to grow each year, adding hundreds of new
pickleball players. In 2015, Robson Communities built 12 additional dedicated pickleball courts for a total of 20 courts. A new Ramada was built, with restrooms available and a place for an ice machine to help keep those drinks cold in the hot days of summer. Even with the addition of these new courts, the activity and usage of all of us playing pickleball can be crazy. The club has many socials and events to keep the spirit of pickleball growing, from drop-in play to weekly Ladders and Round Robins, our annual Chile Cook-off, New Member Pizza Party, April Fool’ s Day Social, Memorial Day Salute, July 4th Firecracker Frenzy, Labor Day End of Summer Sizzler, Toys for Tots and our annual Welcome Back Concert, just to mention a few. Last year the club hosted its first annual PebbleCreek Pickleball Tournament. This threeday event drew over 400 players from all over the USA and Canada, and provided an opportunity for many of the club members to see pickleball at another level of play. This year our tournament is being held February 15-18. It already has over 450 players signed up and is a Senior 50 + tournament. To expand the player participation base and offer the opportunity for younger players to play, we added an extra day for players under the age of 50 to play in 5.0 open Men’ s and Women’ s. This gives another opportunity for the younger players to play in a tournament that was geared toward seniors.
If there is a Pickleball Heaven, we are living in it at PebbleCreek. Yes we can enjoy pickleball 366 days a year— oh yes, Heaven has an extra day! It can get cold here in the winter months; some early mornings can get down into the 40s. The afternoon warms to the 70s and we may have to shed that extra shirt. Yes, the 100-plus-degree days of summer can be brutal, but it is a dry heat! I hope all of you enjoyed the story of our club. We would welcome and love to have everyone come out to visit us, play some pickleball and meet the many friendly folks we have in the PebbleCreek Pickleball Club. •
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2017 | MAGAZINE 59