Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sports in the country. The game is like a combination of tennis, ping pong and badminton and it’s relatively simple to pick up.
Because of this, its popularity is exploding in the Northwoods too, and local players are making an effort to introduce more people to the sport.
A dozen volunteers gather at the pickleball courts outside Rhinelander’s Pioneer Park on Thursday evenings to teach free pickleball lessons to community members.
“It’s fun and it’s for everybody,” says a local pickleball player, Jane Banning. “You can be unfamiliar with racket sports or paddle sports, and you can still pick it up.”
Banning helped organize the free lessons to make the sport more accessible and widely known. They’re offered every Thursday in June at 6 p.m. at the courts near Pioneer Park. Paddles and balls are provided, and no registration is required.
It’s part of a commitment to the Rhinelander Community Foundation, which helped fund the city’s pickleball courts when they were built three years ago.
Since then, more than 150 people have signed up for the Rhinelander Area Pickleball Group’s email list, and that number keeps growing.
“Sometimes in the summer, in peak tourist season in the middle of July, there may be no courts available, and people are standing and waiting to play,” says Joe Smogor, another local pickleball player. “And at the same time there’s pickleball going on in Three Lakes and Eagle River too, so it’s really become quite popular.”
Smogor says the game is so popular because it can be enjoyed by the young and old alike, and once you get started, it’s hard to put the racket down.
Kris Michlig knows this all too well.
“It’s like a day goes by without pickleball and it’s like a day without sunshine,” she says.
Michlig started playing pickleball when she felt isolated during the COVID pandemic.
“I needed to see people and be social again and this was the avenue to that,” she says. “That’s how it all started.”
She’s taught her kids and parents to play. Now, she hopes to share the fun with more newcomers to the sport.
