Pickleball picks up popularity in Magic City – and beyond

PHOTOS PROVIDED

Volunteers from the Magic City Pickleball Club were hard at work Jan. 2 putting down taped lines to create three pickleball courts in the auxiliary gym at Barberton High School – and they had to try out the court as well, of course.

By EMILY CANNING-DEAN

BGNN staff writer

BARBERTON  Just last month, the Magic City Pickleball Club celebrated one year in existence and members of the club have not just enjoyed recreation and fellowship with each other, but they are working hard to get the next generation excited about the sport.

Volunteers from the club were hard at work Jan. 2 as they put down taped lines to create three pickleball courts in the auxiliary gym at Barberton High School.

Keith Starcher, of the Magic City Pickleball Club, said he has spoken with Robert Keith, a USA Pickleball ambassador and the director of the Northeast Ohio Pickleball Players Club. Starcher said Keith told him that Barberton is on the cutting edge preparing for a high school pickleball club.

“Robert would like to see more local high schools create pickleball clubs so there could be some intermural competition between high schools,” Starcher said.

Starcher added that BHS health and physical education teacher, Carolyn Mair, has been instrumental in sparking interest in pickleball at Barberton High School.

“We are so excited to have a pickleball champion like Carolyn,” Starcher said. “She is doing all she can to garner interest and has worked with administrators to allow us to put the lines on the gym floor.”

Starcher said Mair has added a pickleball module to PE classes at the high school.

“I think pickleball would be a great opportunity for kids who maybe don’t think they are athletic enough to make the basketball or football or soccer teams,” he said. “Plus, it’s a game where gender really doesn’t matter. You could have matches with all boys, all girls or mixed doubles.”

When it comes to getting a Barberton High School Pickleball Club off the ground, Starcher said the community is still in the very beginning stages. He said the next step is to determine when the gym will be available for the club to play and when students who are part of the club arem available to meet.

Starcher added that the purchase of some standard pickleball nets would be very helpful for the emerging high school pickleball club. 

“The ones they have at the high school now aren’t very good,” he said. “They aren’t regulation and aren’t really the right height, plus it takes about 20 minutes to set them up and 15 minutes to take them down. Wadsworth has some really nice nets that you can just roll right out of the closet and have them set up in three minutes.”

Starcher said he would like to see some sort of fundraising effort, maybe through the Barberton Community Foundation, for the purchase of better nets for the high school.

While pickleball popularity in Barberton is booming, Starcher said Wadsworth is also becoming a pickleball hot spot and he would love to see Wadsworth High School develop a pickleball club that could play intermural matches with the Barberton High School pickleball club.

“During these winter months, some of us play at the Lake Anna YMCA on Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and then we play at the Wadsworth YMCA on Tuesday and Thursday mornings,” he said. “It would be great if we could get a pickleball champion in Wadsworth to build a club there.” 

Starcher said that after a year in existence, the Magic City Pickleball Club has 275 members and also has a chapter in Naples, Florida as many Magic City members winter in that area.

“The idea popped into my head when we were playing with some members at Tuscora Park who said they winter in Naples,” Starcher said. “So we started a pod in Naples. The members have a Magic City bag tag for when they play down there and they send us their scores for the matches they play.”

For more information about the Magic City Pickleball Club visit the Magic City Pickleball Club Facebook page.