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| SUN LAKES LIFESTYLES | SEPTEMBER 2022 | | SUN LAKES LIFESTYLES | SEPTEMBER 2022 | 59 59 In the July 18 issue of the New Yorker, Sarah Larson writes a far- ranging essay on our sport titled "Can Pickleball Save America?" Intrigued, we read on. Sarah ventured out of her Manhattan environs to Florida and Texas, interviewing pickleball players and entrepreneurs. What she found was a landscape fertile with new courts and new visions of bringing capitalism to our game. Wealthy sportsmen have moved from franchise ownership in football or tennis and toward establishing competing professional leagues and building elaborate venues. Texas is a hotbed of new facilities. One is Dreamland in Dripping Springs, which is a 64-acre melange of cornhole, mini-golf, live music, and art. The centerpiece is pickleball where a tournament was begun: Guns and Hoses. This will be an annual tussle between cops and firefighters with free admission. Along her odyssey, she encountered various brash men who want to make pickleball a mass-market enterprise. She contrasted the bombast of these business-types with the laid-back attitude of so many players. We in Sun Lakes can't relate well with the former, but the friendly sense of community reflected in the demeanor of the typical pickleball addict is very familiar. In fact, it is this very sense of community that prompted the title of her article. "The most important thing about this sport is the friendships," extolled one player. Another said, "There is a common experience of being taught to play by senior citizens and then being walloped by them." Rather than being put off, younger players practice and come back to wallop their mentors; everyone enjoys the experience. The article concludes with the note that our increasingly divided nation needs something to draw disparate folks together for that kind of common experience. It's harder to quarrel with someone over politics when you've just perspired and conspired together to whip your opponents in a doubles match. Her title, in fact, came from the builder of Dreamland, Steve Kuhn. "Pickleball will save America… We've got to get people out there playing pickleball with people who will vote the other way, so they don't want to kill each other." Extreme? Perhaps. But maybe he's onto something. Certainly, the community that our sport fosters is its hallmark. If you haven't been introduced, give Judy Luna a call at (949) 929-2390. See you on the courts! Pickleball Club

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