Pickleball Magazine 2-4 Courtesy of The Pickleball Guru | Page 26

SoCal Mixed Doubles silver medal winners
Heidi
Hancock
D
espite being raised by a boxing coach father and
having heard, “I didn’t raise no quitters,” countless
times growing up, there were two points where perennial
pickleball winner Heidi Hancock almost gave up the sport
for good.
Born and raised in Seattle, where pickleball began,
Hancock started playing when she was 15 after her parents
built a court at their house. The now State of Washington
social worker and 17-year Air Force Reservist also enjoys
basketball and skiing as part of her sports portfolio.
She is an avid ping-pong player
as well and is planning formal
competitions in that sport soon.
With backyard beginnings as
her roots, followed by 20 years of
playing pickleball at the Lakewood
Community Center, she felt herself
becoming “stagnant” and just
“hitting hard.”
“I didn’t think there was more to
the game,” she says. “That is, until
I met Dan Gabanek. It changed
everything for me.”
Gabanek and Hancock eventually
became playing partners through
the years, coming in second at
Nationals. And, while she feels
he reinvented the sport for her,
helping her to add win after win
to her accomplishments, she says she still has trouble with
her singles game and avoids it when she can.
The second time her love for pickleball was rekindled
took place closer to home.
With too many wins to mention under her belt, Hancock,
once again, considered leaving the sport for good. It was
then that her husband was diagnosed with leukemia and
everything changed once more.
“In July of 2013, we were in California for the SoCal and,
as soon as we arrived, my husband began showing signs of
weakness which was very unusual and concerning to us. He
went to the hospital there and insisted I play,” she recalls. “I
played for four days straight and spent every night sleeping
24
and
in the hospital. I won three of the four competitions, but I
could only do that because of the pickleball people and the
pickleball world. They were so supportive. I kept playing
because of him. He trained me in this sport and he wanted
me out there.”
A superior athlete in his own right, Hancock’s husband,
known as “Mad Dog” to the pickleball community, was the
perfect coach for her, in addition to being her inspiration.
She learned from him, and pushed herself to get out on the
court to “keep him going,” and to “get him out in the sun.”
In 2015, he finished an extremely
aggressive round of chemotherapy
and was released.
Where Gabanek taught Hancock
skills such as misdirection, aim and
form, as well as changing direction
with the ball, her husband has
taught her to slow down and hit
easy — and to “see the ball through
the paddle,” watching it slowly like
a camera as it flattens out against
the paddle.
“He taught me new shots, and
how to relax,” she says. “He’s
taught me how to hold my wrist
stiff and be more precise with my
shots. I had tennis elbow really bad
for 15 years... stiffened my wrist
and all that pain went away. I was
changing paddles and grips when it was my technique, the
way I was hitting the ball. I was using my arms instead of
my wrist and body to hit the ball.”
The one thing nobody’s changed is Hancock’s on-the-
court persona, an attribute she inherited from her father
and his time in the boxing ring.
That intensity, which helped her earn 100 percent on the
Air Force Physical Fitness Test and helps her reach speeds
in excess of some highway limits when she skis—she’s been
officially clocked at 59 mph—also got Hancock through the
challenges that leukemia presents to a family, as well as two
periods of stagnation in her pickleball journey. And, in the
end, her father was right: he didn’t raise a quitter.  •
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