Osage Centre offering pickleball

Combine tennis, badminton and pingpong and you get pickleball, which is catching on at the Osage Centre.

Coaching on Monday, Veronica McCormick said she first played pickleball last year in Destin, Fla., where the game is popular with people older than 50 because it is played in an area the size of a doubles badminton court, or a third the size of a tennis court.

"It's easy to play, but you get a lot of cardio," McCormick said. "A lot of those people in Florida have played tennis for a long time and no longer want that long court experience."

Showing a graphite racket she bought for $75 from Pickle-Ball Inc. of Seattle, McCormick said the racket "is much lighter and more accurate" than the wooden ones provided by the Osage Centre, which is scheduling games from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Mondays and Wednesdays and 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. Fridays. A $2 fee is charged for that and other activities.

A pickleball is similar to a whiffle ball but with smaller holes, McCormick noted.

Fred Grabel hits a forehand while playing pickleball Monday at the Osage Centre in Cape Girardeau. (Adam Vogler)

"It's something you can do forever," she said.

"You play singles or doubles, and you can put three courts on a basketball court. You play to 11 points, but you have to win by two. It's a great workout."

The sport has a fairly intricate set of rules the players say seem simpler after a while. For example, players let a serve bounce before hitting it and the returner lets it bounce, after which it may be volleyed, or hit in the air when it comes over the 34-inch-high net.

Unless returning a ball that has bounced, players may not enter a non-volley zone seven feet from each side of the net.

Monday was Fred Grabel's second time to play.

"It's the exercise and the people," Grabel said.

"It's complicated at the beginning. I will probably do it at least twice a week," he said.

Jean Estes has been playing pickleball since last summer, when his cousin Don Hopper and Larry Haertling introduced him to it.

"It's a good game," Estes said. "You don't have to do lots of running, but there is a lot of reflex and agility involved."

Sherri Mehner said the game "gives me a chance to be inside and play something challenging.

"It's fun and gives me some exercise," Mehner said. "The first time, I thought it would be easy, but my heart was pumping."

Karen Bangert had played pickleball during a 1996 mission trip to Paraguay for La Croix United Methodist Church "and never saw it again" until recently here.

"Weather is a factor," Bangert said. "When it gets really cold, I don't enjoy tennis. This is a great alternative to be inside and play a racket sport. It's fun and a lot easier than tennis or racquetball."

"A wide variety of people can play," she said.

According to the USA Pickleball Association in Surprise, Ariz., the game originated on Bainbrige Island, Wash., in 1965, when state Rep. Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum could not find a badminton shuttlecock, lowered the net, made plywood paddles and used a whiffle ball.

Pritchard's wife, Joan, coined the name, she told the Parkersburg, W.Va., News and Sentinel in 2008, upon remarking that "it reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where the oarsman are chosen from the leftovers of other boats," she said.

Pertinent address:

1625 N. Kingshighway, Cape Girardeau, Mo.