2019 Arizona Health and Physical Education State Convention

Continued Growth of Pickleball in Schools through After School Programs;

The growth in pickleball has seen a tremendous involvement with schools and PE Teachers. Pickleball representatives continue to get involved in workshops and classes teaching to Physical Educators throughout the year.

When we started our program 2 years ago we were faced with one common question, where can we play?

Today, across the country more courts are available on the local level primarily through Parks and Rec and converted tennis courts on school grounds.

Today, the question is, how can we develop programs such as league play, tournaments, and family events for pickleball and the kids.

We are actively creating these things through weekend and after school programs, we are including players as young as 8 years old to play in USAPA sanctioned events.

Our National Pickleball Tournament, held each year in Indian Wells, CA included tournament level play for our youth, we had also set aside 2 days of our 11 day event dedicated to kids, one day was spend in a child parent event, another was a "Play with the Pros" event.

We are no longer the sport played by retirees at RV Parks. We are truly a life long game that focuses on physical literacy with our youth.