Across the Aisle | Pickleball Inspires Both Sides of the Net.

• Author: Peterson, Eric

Maryland was the first state to have an official sport. The year: 1962. The sport: jousting.

In the years since, Alaska chose dog-mushing, Minnesota picked ice hockey and North Carolina went with stock car racing. And, as of March 28, Washington state has adopted its official sport: pickleball, invented in the mid-1960s by then-Washington Rep. Joel Pritchard and friends Barney McCallum and Bill Bell at Pritchard's Bainbridge Island cabin in suburban Seattle.

After its invention, pickleball mania quickly spread across Puget Sound to Olympia, the capital, where Pritchard introduced it to fellow legislators. By the mid-1970s, it had gained traction outside the Evergreen State; by 1990, there were pickleball courts in all 50 states. There are now more than 4.8 million pickleball players in the U.S.-up 600,000 from 2020-according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.

Washington Senate Vice President Pro Tem John Lovick (D) sponsored the bill to make pickleball the official state sport at a friend's suggestion. A pickleball neophyte when the measure got its first reading in January, Lovick charged ahead and shepherded the bill through the legislative process.

'Positive Vibes'

"This is my 15th year in the Legislature, and I have never sponsored anything that has generated so much attention, so many positive vibes," he says.

It's a notably egalitarian sport: It's fun for all ages, the court is small enough to fit in most any backyard, and two paddles and a ball can sell for as little as $20. It also spans the political divide.

"You need something like this every once in a while in the Legislature to get bipartisan support-a fun bill," Sen. Jim Honeyford (R), a co-sponsor, says.

For the pickleball-curious, here's how it's done: Drop a badminton net so the top is 3 feet from the ground and play with solid paddles and a whiffle ball in lieu of rackets and a shuttlecock. Two or four players can play. Each side must let the ball bounce before hitting it back over the net. The first side to hit 11 points wins the game.

Because it involves a whiffle ball, players can't be timid. "You've got to be able to hit the ball hard. Nobody plays golf to putt," Pritchard told the Washington State Oral History Program. The Republican later served six terms in the U.S. House of Representatives and two terms as Washington's lieutenant governor.

Gov. Jay Inslee signed Lovick's bill March 28 on Pritchard's original pickleball court on Bainbridge Island. Lovick...