Ely Community Education

Pickleball is played on a court that’s about 40 percent of the size of a regulation tennis court. Pickleball: a little bit like Ping-Pong, a little bit of badminton, a lot of momentum.  It's a fun fast-paced sport that allows you to engage in healthy exercise.  Players use wooden or composite rackets that are slightly larger than ping-pong paddles to hit a plastic ball back and forth over a net. The net is a few inches lower than a standard tennis net.

 If you play pickleball come and join a great group of people and play the fastest-growing sport in the USA.  A fun and active sport.

We have beginner classes from time to time please sign up for our interest in pickleball email registration.

A brief history of Pickleball

The game was invented in the 1960s by several parents vacationing in Bainbridge Island, Washington. The parents wanted their kids to do something outdoors instead of lying around inside all day (and this was long before video games and cellphones!

One house had a badminton court, so they grabbed a few ping-pong paddles, a plastic ball and made up the rules as they went along. The kids and the parents played all summer and then went home to Seattle, introducing the game to neighbors and friends.

There are two stories about how the game got its name. Some of the creators say they called it pickleball because a neighbor’s dog (named Pickles) kept running off with the balls. But Pickles’s owners say the dog came later. The game, they say, was named after a pickle boat, a crew term for a boat made up of spare rowers.

 VCC Gym on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays, from 8 a.m. – Noon.

8:00am -12:00pm

Cost: $35