Carlsbad High School’s new Pickleball Club offers a way to play pickleball with school peers. Pickleball is a sport similar to tennis, except the rackets are exchanged for paddles and tennis balls for plastic ones. From building lifelong friendships to playing matches and improving skills, the club is open to all students.
The club meets once a week at the Shoppes at Carlsbad pickleball courts. The Pickleball Club brings students together every Tuesday from 7:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m. Junior Shae Adams has been a member of the club since its founding and elaborates on why students should consider joining.
“It’s not serious; it’s not like a competitive pickleball team, and we just go to the courts every now and then and play pickleball with a bunch of friends,” Adams said. “A lot of my friends are in [the club], so it’s fun to just go mess around and play pickleball with them.”
Pickleball Club enables students to socialize with others in a fun and active environment. The president of the club, Junior Matthew Walker, explains why he created it.
“Over the summer, I had a passion for [pickleball] since I had a lot of free time, and I wanted to develop something that the campus can enjoy together,” Walker said. “[We] just really have a lot of fun competing against each other, learning, and having a space for [students] to come join together and play pickleball.”
The Pickleball Club welcomes both experienced and inexperienced students to learn how to play pickleball and compete against each other in matches. Pickleball Club is working its way toward future goals.
“[Our goal is to] be able to play pickleball on campus instead of off if we are able to find a spot to play on the court or just bring a portable net on campus for lunch,” Walker said. “[We hope to] scrimmage Sage Creek because they also have a Pickleball team.”
In the future, the club hopes to move its space to campus courts and interact with other Pickleball teams for more competition. Junior Claire Sabella is the secretary for the club and explains what makes the Pickleball Club unique.
“Pickleball Club allows anyone and everyone, no matter how much experience they have with the sport, to come together, make new friendships, and just have fun playing the game,” Sabella said.