I confess.  I’ve never played, and the reasons are two-fold.   First and most importantly, I am not an athlete.  I suck at sports, particularly sports where other people have to count on me for anything, so any potential for team aspects of a game are nerve wracking, for me and everyone else.  Second, I’m stubborn, and the seemingly sudden ubiquity of pickleball . . . maybe it annoyed me a little?

 

Then I had a conversation with Tim and Heather Dull, and I’m now thinking about (finally) giving pickleball a chance, such is their infectiousness and genuine, almost childlike enthusiasm and passion for the sport.   

 

Dare I say, Tim and Heather have changed my mind.

 

The Dulls, empty nesters from Ellicott City, Maryland, vacationed in Sarasota in early 2021 and purchased a house in Granada Park a few months later. Heather and Tim, each a retired CFA and equity analyst, have left behind the familiar and taken a leap for their shared passion: an indoor Dill Dinkers Pickleball Club located at 500 Tallevast Road, Sarasota, FL 34243.

 

“Across all ages, anyone can connect and have fun with this sport,” Tim tells me, waxing beautifully about his enthusiasm for pickleball, “I know people who would be playing literally all the time if they could.”

 

For those of you who have been living under a rock (no judgment here), pickleball is a net game, played singles or doubles (think tennis), wherein the players use a smooth-faced paddle to hit a perforated, hollow plastic ball over a 34-inch-high net until one side is unable to return the ball or commits a rule infraction. Played indoors and outdoors, its fans are loyal, enthusiastic . . . obsessed even.

 

The game was created in 1965 in to-be U.S. Congressman Joel Pritchard’s Bainbridge Island backyard by his family and friends, who hodge-podged the game borrowing leftover equipment from several sports: a court from badminton, table tennis paddles, a wiffle ball and a tennis net.  There are several explanations for the name "pickleball", but my favorite is that it was derived from the name of the Pritchards' family dog, Pickles.  I choose to ignore that representatives from USA Pickleball say research on their part has confirmed that the dog Pickles was born after the game had already been named.

 

Whatever the name, it’s a cool origin story, much like Heather and Tim Dull. Heather was born in South Korea and came to the United States with her family at six, and the family ended up settling in Baltimore.   She met Tim, an Iowa native, in Chicago, where they were both working as equity portfolio managers, at a garden party thrown by some mutual friends.  Interestingly, the Iowan managed an emerging markets fund and the South Korean native the US equity fund.

 

Of their meeting, Heather says, “He was just this goofy guy that kept running in and out of the party.  He lived next door, and just kept popping over.”  Tim chuckles as she talks, it’s obvious to both of them (and obvious to me) they are still enamored with one another.

 

Like pickleball, Heather and Tim can be competitive.  While the sparks were there right away, “we were professional rivals,” he says.   They both worked a lot, but still found the time to have a first date (eventually) and got married a year later in the Chicago Cultural Center (formerly the old main public library) and the nation’s first free municipal cultural arts center.

Pickleball grew fast, as did Heather and Tim’s new family.    Caroline, now 23, is a second-gen equity analyst in Baltimore, and Timothy, 21, also in Maryland, and loves to play pickleball with two paddles.  He would temporarily put down one paddle to serve and pick it up again after serving.  Having children and a parent (as well as a second residence) in their former home state, means that Tim and Heather go back and forth between here and there quite a bit .  .  .  like balls in a Pickleball match.

 

While their children were growing up, the family picked up tennis, then started playing pickleball during lockdown.  The four soon found themselves liking the new sport so much that they even painted a court in their Maryland driveway.  As members of a Dill Dinkers Club in Maryland (I encourage you to look this up), they became enthralled with the fun, all-age family atmosphere, but found there was no equivalent indoor facility in their new home city.

 

Dill Dinkers is about to take Sarasota by storm.  Tim says, “This is our labor of love.  Sometimes we will be working like crazy on this new project and just look at each other and say, ‘Did we really sign up for this?’”

 

They sure did.  Heather describes their (currently top-secret) location near SRQ airport, what she envisions as a pickleball/social club/event center/community gathering spot, “where people of all ages can come, make new friends, and relieve stress.”    Tim and Heather, who are passionate about building community (locally they are big supporters of Selby, Ringling, Van Wezel, and Boys and Girls Club), see the new club as seamlessly integrating with and bolstering community in Sarasota.  A former CASA, Heather still sits on the board of Voices for Children in Howard County in MD and wants to get more involved helping foster kids in Sarasota too.

 

Heather and Tim’s enthusiasm is irresistible.  I think I’m about to play some pickleball.