Pickleball picking up popularity. Here’s where you can play it in Miami-Dade
At least once a week, Ron Ayala and his fellow Coral Gables firefighters move their trucks out of the station garage — known as the “engine bay” — to clear some space.
Next, they use tape to put lines on the floor, 44 feet long and 20 feet wide. Then they bring out a portable net, grab a plastic pickleball and wooden or composite paddles. Finally, they close the doors, and it’s time for pickleball.
“It’s great cardio,” said Ayala, who works at Riviera Station 2. “We have 24-hour work shifts. In our down time, pickleball is a great way to break the stress of a tough job.”
Pickleball, which can be described as a cross between tennis and ping-pong, is not just popular in South Florida fire stations.
Scott Cosgrove, a 48-year-old lawyer and Kendall resident, used to play “a ton” of tennis. This past summer, he started playing pickleball, and now he’s competing in his new favorite sport four times a week.
“There’s something addictive about the sound of the paddle connecting with the ball,” Cosgrove said. “It’s like a symphony.”
Cosgrove said he loves that pickleball games cross gender and age lines. Typically, two pairs of players compete.
At Thanksgiving this past year, Cosgrove converted his backyard tennis court into a pickleball palace; one tennis court can make room for multiple pickleball courts. And 15 family members competed — from his 85-year-old father, George, all the way down to his 11-year-old son, Chase.
Pickleball, which has been around since 1965, started as a children’s game in Washington state, where it has since become extremely popular. This month, one of the state’s legislators even proposed a bill to designate pickleball as Washington’s official sport. It has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the nation and has made its way down Florida’s Gulf Coast and into Broward County. Only now, though, is it just starting to become extremely popular in the Miami area.
Steve Schneider, a 67-year-old resident of Pinecrest, first heard about pickleball in December 2019 while on vacation with his wife, Rachelle, in Palm Springs, California. While on the grounds of their hotel, the couple happened upon a pickleball court.
Schneider had been a handball player, winning three state titles, but a shoulder injury put an end to that activity.
“When I found out that the pickleball serve is underhand, I said, ‘This is for me!’” said Schneider, who owns a mortgage company. “But when we got back to Miami, I couldn’t find a pickleball court.”
One day, nearly a year later, he overheard a colleague conversing about pickleball.
Schneider’s ears perked up, and that led him to playing at the Salvation Army in Kendall and then at Riviera Prep and just about anywhere and everywhere else.
As a result of the increased exercise coupled with a better diet, Schneider has dropped from 194 pounds to 159 in less than 11 months.
Unfortunately, as Schneider mentioned, there aren’t many places to play this sport in Miami-Dade. The county’s dearth of courts is ironic because the pickleball capital of the world is in nearby Naples.
There are a stunning 64 pickleball courts at East Naples Community Park. That facility holds the annual U.S. Open national championships in April-May, drawing more than 2,000 players from 47 states and at least 20 countries. The finals are broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
A quick primer on the sport: The ball is plastic and slightly larger than a wiffle ball. The paddles are larger than in ping pong but much smaller than a tennis racket. You can hit overhand on any shot except your serve.
Also, to start each point, the ball must bounce ounce before a player can return a serve, and the serving team also has to let the ball bounce ounce. There are also rules about the 7-foot-deep “kitchen,” a non-volley zone close to the net on each side of the court.
According to the 2020 Pickleball Participation Report, there are 3.5 million pickleball players in the United States. The average age for players is 43.5, and 49 percent of the sport’s devotees are between 18 and 54. In fact, the Chicago Cubs play pickleball in their bullpen.
Pickleball, according to the Sport and Fitness Industry Association, is America’s fastest-growing sport over the past five years. From 2019 to 2020, for example, participation grew by 21.3 percent, and those numbers have only climbed since the onset of the pandemic.
Seattle, close to where the game started, leads the nation with 2.6 pickleball courts per 10,000 residents, but the game is popular almost everywhere.
Riviera Prep tennis coach Jane Forman found that out quickly.
In June last year, her school completed work on eight tennis courts and four for pickleball.
“I opened what I call a pickleball club,” Forman said. “The next thing I know, we had 140 people in our WhatsApp chat, organizing daily pickleball games.”
WHERE TO PLAY IN MIAMI-DADE
Pickleball enthusiasts in Broward County are fortunate. They can choose from six dedicated courts at Holiday Park — or eight at Davie Bamford, or 12 at Plantation Central. And there’s also plenty more.
Miami-Dade pickleballers? It’s not nearly as easy to find a game, although it’s getting better, thanks in part to the efforts of Lily Azel, a 55-year-old Miamian who started playing pickleball five years ago in Big Sky Montana.
“I had never played a competitive sport in my life, but I was immediately hooked,” Azel said. “But when I got back to Miami, there was nowhere to play.”
Azel found herself driving for hours to find games in Davie and Naples. Her husband, Jose, thought she was crazy, but Azel had caught the pickleball bug.
At one of her games, she met Pastor Angel Hernandez, who works for the Salvation Army in Kendall and is a pickleball enthusiast. They decided to team up and grow the sport in Miami, painting lines on the Salvation Army basketball court.
They started with eight players. Azel then created Team App, which helped the pickleball community connect.
Over time, she built a database of enthusiasts, and she started a petition on charge.org that got more than 1,000 signatures.
That petition helped convince Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava to create courts for pickleball enthusiasts.
Given that, here’s where you can play in Miami on courts that are dedicated exclusively to pickleball:
Rivera Preparatory School (Riviera Prep), 9775 SW 87 Ave.; 305 775-4727; four new courts, built in June of 2021.
Miccosukee Golf & Country Club, 6401 Kendale Lakes Dr., 305 382-3930; eight new courts.
Salvador Park, 1120 Andalusia Ave., Coral Gables, 305 460-5333; Two courts, although they’re a bit cramped.
There are several places where you can play pickleball on courts that share space with tennis or basketball, including:
Miller Drive Park, 5510 SW 94 Court; 305 271-0812; four courts.
Arcola Lake, 1301 NW 83rd St.; one shared court.
Salvation Army, 8445 Sunset Dr., 305 270-9373, three temporary courts shared with basketball.
Suniland Park, 12855 Pinecrest Pkwy., 305 234-2120, four temporary courts shared with basketball. They just started their first league on Jan. 15.
It’s not much, but help is on the way.
By the end of February, Tropical Park expects to have four brand-new dedicated pickleball courts, with lights.
“That’s not going to be enough,” said Andy Rubinstein, a pro pickleball player. “It’s going to be a madhouse.”
Haulover is building four dedicated courts, and those are expected to be ready by mid-summer. And by the end of the summer, Tamiami is planning to have six dedicated courts.
In addition, several other Miami-Dade parks are planning a time-share to accommodate pickleball.
By February, Kendale Lakes expects to have lines drawn for two shared and lighted courts, and the same is true for Water Oak Park by the end of April.
The courts at Kendale Lakes, Tropical, Haulover, Water Oaks, Tamiami, Miller Drive and Arcola all fall under the supervision of Miami-Dade County.
In Miami Beach and the Keys
Azel, who is the USA pickleball ambassador for Miami, said there are no pickleball-only courts on Miami Beach. But here is where you can play the sport on shared space in Miami Beach:
Scott Rakow Youth Center, 2700 Sheridan Ave., 305 673-7767; three indoor courts.
North Shore Park, 501 72nd St., 305 861-3616; three indoor courts.
Fairway Park, 200 Fairway Dr., 305 993-2011; two courts.
Miami Beach Golf Club, 2301 Alton Rd., 305 532-3350; one court.
Normandy Shores Park, 2401 Biarritz Dr., 305 993-2021; one court.
Polo Park, 4301 N. Michigan Dr., one court.
The game is also popular in the Florida Keys. Hawks Cay in Duck Key, for example, built eight pickleball-only courts in November.
Walter Villa can be reached at wvilla07@yahoo.com .
