Tracing Back Pickleball’s Origins to Badminton Court, Photographer Shares Unseen Pics From 70s Pickleball Camp

Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports in the world right now, but did you know that the game was actually founded on a badminton court? In 1965, two fathers, Bill Bell and Joel Pritchard were looking for a way to keep their bored kids entertained. So, with two paddles a plastic ball and a badminton net, they came up with an entirely new sport altogether.

That’s how the game began in Bainbridge Island in the United States, although to play the game, the two co-founders needed paddles, so that’s where the third co-founder Barney MacCallum came into the picture.

Barney’s son David recalled the story of how his father, who used to work in an envelope company, but at night Barney and his son used to work together to create pickleball paddles for the rising demand.

There’s also an interesting story around the name of the sport, the reason why the game was named ‘pickleball’ is that the two co-founders Bill Bell and Joel Pritchard had a dog named ‘pickles’ who would grab the ball every time it went out of the court.

While there are some accounts which claim that pickles was actually born after the sport was founded, so the story behind the origin of the name ‘pickleball’ is confusing but the sport itself was very easy to learn, thus leading to its worldwide popularity.

Photographer shares unseen pictures of pickleball camp from the 70s

While pickleball was indeed founded in Bainbridge Island, Washington, however, Sonoma County, California also has a long history in pickleball.

Photographer Jim Johnson published a series of photos sent by Robert Phillips cataloguing his experience at ‘Sonoma Mountain Pickleball Camp’.

The pictures show how the rules of the sport were laid out in a document, with local people playing the sport in the camp with wooden paddles.