Pickleball in Norfolk: Bridge With a Racket

By Janet Gokay Mead

If you have access to any sort of media, you’ve probably read several articles about how pickleball is taking the country by storm. Well, for once, Norfolk was at the forefront of a cultural tsunami: a small group of players in town have been at it for three years—and it is growing in terms of the number of participants and the venues available.

As the USA Pickleball website declares: “There’s a reason so many players get hooked on this sport—it’s easy to start, but hard to stop.”

Pickleball is often described as a sort of mash-up of tennis, badminton and ping-pong. The paddles are small and light, and the plastic ball is similar to a whiffle ball. The court is about the size of a badminton court, with a lower, modified tennis net. It can be played by singles or doubles. A game is 11 points, and the winning side must win by two. There are no matches—just a series of games, however many people want to play. You can switch partners, or those waiting on the sidelines can step in to play.

“As a tennis player, I really took to pickleball . . . the games are short, it’s very friendly, we switch around and joke. . . . It’s a little bit easier on the joints, especially the shoulders,” commented ace PB player Valerie Nelson. “It’s a different kind of movement . . . you’re not moving all over, like in tennis, but you have to be really agile—your reflexes have to be very good. It’s really good for older people,” she added. 

Terry Olsen, a longtime member of the Norfolk Curling Club, introduced the game to Norfolk in the summer of 2021, perceiving that it could be played at the Curling Club during the warmer months. The game was welcomed with enthusiasm by the community, since not only was it an engaging sport anyone could play, it was a wonderful use of space for the club. “And Terry is a fantastic player—he’s got the reach of a tarantula. It’s just beautiful to watch,” opined Nelson. Referring to his arm span, other PB players refer to him, affectionately, as the California Condor.

“Everyone is very welcoming at the Curling Club,“ Nelson said. She had started playing PB in Vero, Fla., where PB has been a rage for several years. “In my gym in Vero we had eight indoor courts, and around 30 outside court and there were always people lined up waiting to play. You always partner a newbie with someone who knows how to play . . . you don’t really find that in tennis.”

For the first few months that year, players gathered on Tuesday and Friday evenings for a few hours. Toward the end of the summer, Hartley Mead started a “Sunday League,” which met at 9 a.m. Sundays at the club. They would play a few games, break for a socially distanced coffee hour outside, then return for another few games. Seeking an outdoor venue, Mead painted a PB court on an abandoned tennis court at Botelle School, provided nets and equipment—and moved the Sunday League there, weather permitting.

According to staunch PB player Jonathan Sanoff, “Hartley is really the soul, chief cheerleader and baker of the Sunday pickleball group. It’s the social fun not the (rather silly) sport that makes it so appealing.”

Meanwhile, pickleball was percolating in surrounding areas. Winsted established a court within their tennis courts on Rowley Street, and the Winsted and the Torrington YMCAs began offering it as well. Last winter, one of the Norfolk PB originals, Shannon Sharach (who had formerly played the game with his mother in Maine), convinced the Torrington Parks and Recreation Department to offer PB “free play” on Mondays and Wednesdays at the Armory. He used the Norfolk Curling Club equipment to get the Torrington group up and running.

Just at press time, Norfolk Now heard from First Selectman Matt Riiska that the town has voted to hire contractors to redo the tennis courts at Botelle School—and they’ll be incorporating PB courts into the tennis courts, hopefully next month. This should prove to be a boon for the town. “Many of us like to play tennis, but we don’t want to belong to a club,” observed Richard Kessin, one of the original Norfolk PB players. “Botelle is a very lovely, green facility for all sorts of things.”

“It’s a game for ex-squash and tennis players because we’re aging into it, he said. “It’s very social, you spend half your time on the sidelines, schmoozing. It’s a game you can play well into your 80s—maybe more. It’s sort of bridge with a racket!”