Rosemary Chesney, asst. sports editor 

Pickleball currently holds the title for the fastest growing sport in America, according The Economist. On Sept. 25, Junior Joe Scarborough founded Berry’s first ever official pickleball club. Over the past month, the club has skyrocketed from one to 81 members, providing Berry students with a unique opportunity to build relationships between different students. 

At the start of the semester, Scarborough, who has played pickleball for seven years, brought up the idea of starting a pickleball club to fellow juniors Cole McDaniel, Kate Gray and Alex Ruble. After getting the club approved by the student activities office, Scarborough became the president of the club. 

“What’s unique about pickleball is that you don’t have to be a tennis player to be good [at pickleball] or even enjoy it,” Scarborough said. “I just wanted to create a community around people who want to hang out and enjoy a fun game.” 

Within two weeks, the number of members jumped from one to 50. Collectively, there are now over 80 members in the pickleball club. Freshman Harmony Collins attended her first meeting on Saturday Oct. 23 and plans to stay in the club for the rest of the year. 

“It was cool because we were hitting with random people we would have never met before,” Collins said. “[The Pickleball club] was fun just to talk to both people I knew and people I had never talked to before.” 

While the club does not currently have consistently set meeting times, they have been meeting two to three times a week. Generally, 15 to 20 people attend the meetings, according to Scarborough, and members play both doubles and singles during the meetings. About 50 percent of the members are freshmen, with the other half evening out between sophomores and juniors. McDaniel said he often plays against people he has never met before. 

“My favorite part of the club is giving people a platform to play and go out and meet new people,” McDaniel said. “It’s fun getting to meet freshmen and build relationships that probably would not have happened without the pickleball club.” 

With over 80 club members, comes various challenges. One of the biggest obstacles is that only 16 people can play on Berry’s four pickleball courts at a time. Finding a consistent time during the week where many people can play has also been a challenge, according to Scarborough and McDaniel. 

“One of the biggest challenges is court space,” McDaniel said. “It’s tough to have enough people out there on the courts without just standing around.” 

Although the pickleball club is presently only a Berry organization, Scarborough envisions connecting with other schools. Robert Morris University contacted Scarborough, asking if they could play against Berry. Currently, a college pickleball league is being formed between schools such as Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University and Michigan State University. Before Berry can play other schools, however, the club needs to be approved by the Student Life Council, which could take from one to two months. 

Scarborough said that the first tournament he could expect against other schools would occur at the end of the Spring semester. The biggest challenge with competition between other schools is finding schools in the immediate area who have pickleball teams. Scarborough said they are going to continue having laid-back practices this semester before moving towards a more competitive atmosphere in the future. 

“The pickleball club is unique because it’s more consistent than intramural sports and goes longer than them, but not as rigorous as club sports,” McDaniel said. “It brings a fun atmosphere for people to hang out, meet new people and play a cool sport.”