Pickleball Magazine 2-5 | Page 51

The Dawson Family - Callan, Tyler, Jennifer & Steve Even for existing members of the club, interest took off and now an estimated 10 percent of the tennis players play both sports. The club now has a dedicated pickleball membership level and members can reserve their own private court at no charge. There’s a pickleball ball machine available and a free monthly clinic. Dawson now coaches and runs pickleball camps and is open to future court conversions. “We’re fine with how it is now and we can host the big tournaments without any problem using temporary courts, but we’ll be following the curve as well,” he explains. Personally, Dawson recalls that he started playing because of all the “noise” from the fun everyone was having. “In tennis, you don’t have gut-busting laughter between every point. I said, ‘I want to give this thing a shot’ and I was 100 percent hooked. It was a blast. Being a tennis pro and a scholarship athlete, I thought I could wax these guys and I got killed. I had instant respect for the sport.” The challenging parts of the transition for him were the soft shots, dinks, slices and kitchen play that tennis players don’t do. “The forehands, backhands and overheads were easy—they were all the same as tennis. They were easy to transition,” he says. CONTINUED >> SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER2017 | MAGAZINE 49