16 | Community Facebook.com/TheReporterNewspapers ■ twitter.com/Reporter_News ‘Pickleball’ catching on

PHOTOS BY JOE EARLE Ed Feldstein says he helped bring pickelball to Dunwoody and now plays about four days a week. BY JOE EARLE lanta in Dunwoody a half-dozen or so years [email protected] ago and now plays about four days a week. “It’s fun to watch. It’s fun to play. It’s It looks a bit like a game cobbled togeth- fun to learn,” Feldstein said one recent er during a slow weekend at a vacation morning before he joined the crew get- house after the host couldn’t track down ting a morning workout with a series of all the pieces required for any single . fast-paced pickleball games at the MJCCA, Players swing paddles that look like which calls pickleball its “hottest sport.” they came from an oversized Ping-Pong Feldstein remembers days when he’d game. They hit a hollow plastic ball that’s get laughed at when he went into a sport- full of holes. The ball bounces back and ing goods store and ask to buy a pickleball forth over a net similar to one on a ten- paddle. No more, he says, because pickle- nis court. The game moves quickly. Some ball courts are springing up across north regular players of the sport called “pickle- metro Atlanta. ball” say it can feel like playing table The city of Dunwoody has included a while standing on the table. court in its newest city park, the Park at Still, it’s catching on. Just ask Ed Feld- Pernoshal Court, which was scheduled to stein, a 77-year-old Sandy Springs retiree open April 29. That court joins more than who says he helped bring the game to the 70 others set up across Georgia and more Marcus Jewish Community Center of At- than 13,000 in the country, according to the APR. 29 - MAY. 12, 2016 ■ www.ReporterNewspapers.net Community | 17

USA Pickleball Associa- It goes back to the or- tion, which is located in igin of the game itself. Surprise, Ariz. Pickleball was invent- Dunwoody Parks ed near Seattle in 1965 and Recreation Direc- by vacationing fami- tor Brent Walker said lies who wanted to play city officials decided , but couldn’t to include the court in find the shuttlecock. the new park after resi- So they combined pad- dents asked for it during dles, a Wiffle ball and a public meetings. Walker badminton net to make said he’d never heard of a game that kids and the game before those adults alike could play. meetings, but its fans The pickleball as- Ed Feldstein, left, and Nora were insistent. “There’s Floersheim get ready to volley sociation says one sto- a small but strong con- during a fast game of pickleball. ry is that the origi- tingent of folks that like nal players named to play pickleball,” he said. their game cobbled from many parts af- Allan Bleich, a retired doctor, said he ter the “pickle boat” in competi- took up the sport after he stopped playing tions, which uses a crew made up of row- tennis because of knee trouble. “It’s just a ers from different boats. Another version fun way to exercise,” he said. is that they named it for the family dog, Nora Floersheim, a 67-year-old retired Pickles. school teacher and former ten- nis player, picked up pickleball a couple of years ago at the Mar- cus Center and now teaches it to newcomers. Like other pickle- ball fans, she said an important aspect of the game is camarade- rie among the players, who sit to- gether and chat while awaiting a turn on the court. “It’s very, very, very social,” she said. Pickleball players gather in Dunwoody And the name? How did it for morning games at the Marcus Jewish get to be “pickleball,” anyway? Community Center of Atlanta.