The next increment of growth was around 2003 when another mobile home park in FT Myers converted a basketball court to pickleball court; again for use by residents of the park only.
The next incident, that influenced the growth of the sport, came when in August of 2004 I first became involved with the State Senior Games. I found that I had to travel to Sarasota County to compete in racquetball and badminton because neither Lee nor Collier Counties offered these sports in their regional county senior games. Luckily, I qualified in both sports to compete in the Florida State Sr Games Championships games which were held at the Villages.
It was during these State Senior Championship games, held each year in early December, that I became interested in the game of pickleball; simply because it was the most popular sport (some 250 entrants) of all the senior sports offered.
While competing in Badminton and Racquetball and winning Gold Medals in my age group, I took the time to watched the Pickleball competition. I was so impressed by the speed of the game and the number of people all playing on 24 of the 60 courts available at the Villages that I brought the sport back with me and started Pickleball at the Brookshire Bath and Tennis Club, (another private club for owners and guests only) At first to get started I chalked 4 tennis courts and eventually painted pickleball lines on two courts. The sport rapidly grew to as many as 30 with all ages, plus we were running PB tournaments. However most of the players were not residents which began to cause a problem with the management since Brookshire was a private club. This resulted in a drop in tha amount of play.
The courts at Brookshire are now rarely used because there are not enough homes in the Brookshire development to keep any kind of organized play in Pickleball going. Not being able to encourage outsiders to learn the game and play has resulted in no growth of the sport. Players who now know how to play have absolutly no place to play.
Under the circumstances I felt PB would not grow until Lee County decided it was a sport they thought would grow. Efforts be me to get local tennis courts painted with PB lines so they could be used for multi sports fell on deaf ears.
It was not untill I approached the new Wa-Ka-Hatchee Recreation Center in the Lexington Middle School (off Summerlin) that I was was able to convince them that the sport could be played inside a gym. In Jan of 2005 we played our first indoor Pickleball on 4 courts laid out with tape.
Read more about where Pickleball in SW Florida is today in my next Article II about the History of Pickleball in Southwest Florida
