FROM THE USAPA
Gladys Hill played golf in the Senior Olympics, which led to her husband pushing for the inclusion of his favorite sport.
“ This was just barely starting over here with all new players. Some of those players( at Happy Trails) were pretty adept at it,” Mr. Hill said.” Since we had four courts we decided it might not be a bad idea to have a tournament. I checked into the Arizona Senior Olympics. They didn’ t have pickleball. They didn’ t know what it was.”
Senior Olympics organizers went ahead with the idea, provided the pickleballers could wrangle up 15 players. More than 100 participated in the 2001 tournament.
It was bigger than any tournament Mr. Hill played at in Washington. And it was only the beginning.
“ So the word got back to the Northwest— Seattle area, Portland, and where all the‘ snowbirds’ are. They said,‘ Hey, they’ ve got this game going in Surprise. They’ ve got dedicated courts and this huge tournament out here,” Mr. Davis said.
Happy Trails hosted the first three tournaments. Mr. Hill envisioned a bigger tournament on newer courts at Arizona Traditions.
Soon after the Senior Olympics, things began to move on that front.
“ One day a couple of guys in dark suits came over. I knew one of them was the business manager here for D. R. Horton. The other guy was the sales manager. They came over here to see what all these people were doing, having so much fun. He could see dollar signs, that this would help sell lots,” Mr. Hill said.
Mr. Hamer’ s construction background came in handy in putting together the courts, which have not cracked in more than a decade of use. When lighting proved too expensive, Mr. Hamer found some surplus tennis lights at a salvage yard for $ 700; DIY welder four extra inches to each light standard and up they went.
D. R. Horton built six courts in the community by 2004 and the Senior Olympics tournament moved in for the next five years.
Even two years into that arrangement, the 500-plusperson tournament field had outgrown six courts so Sun City Grand chipped in to host half the matches. The much larger neighboring active adult community took to pickleball after residents Bill and Jan Booth joined the players at Arizona Traditions.
Other West Valley retirement communities caught on after that.
“ It was Happy Trails and Traditions. Then( Sun City) Grand caught on, then the Sun Cities and Pebble Creek,” Mr. Davis said.
By 2005 Mr. Hill and Mr. Davis were among the cornerstones in the formation of the national USAPA organization. Mark
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JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2017 | MAGAZINE 9