Tyson McGuffin outlines his next big moves ahead of USA Pickleball National Championships

Tyson McGuffin had a dream of becoming a professional tennis player. He first learned to swing a racket growing up in Lake Chelan, Washington, where he wrestled before eventually transitioning to tennis. He eventually became a tennis pro at a tennis club in Yakima, Washington, and was introduced to pickleball.

Six short years later, McGuffin is now one of the most recognizable faces in the fastest-growing sport in America. He’s playing here in the California desert this week in the USA Pickleball National Championships, the Super Bowl of pickleball, at the Indian Wells Tennis Garden.

“I fell in love with the comradery,” McGuffin said. “Fell in love with how it was a fresh breath of air from tennis and golf. It wasn’t as catty, there wasn’t a whole lot of status, you could talk a little trash.”

Though McGuffin, 32, is a former 5.5 ranked tennis player, he came to realize years earlier that he wasn’t quite good enough to play tennis professionally. But he still had a lot of competitive fire and decided to channel that toward pickleball.

Within about six months, he was able to hang with some of the top players in the sport and a few men who were ranked in the top 10 nationally.

“Right then and there, I was like, ‘You know what, I’m going to pursue this with my time,'” McGuffin said.

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He quickly moved to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, where he worked for a tennis and pickleball club for a couple years while running pickleball camps during the COVID-19 pandemic. He then began his own camp business, Tyson McGuffin Signature PB Camps, cranking out content, instructional videos and a podcast, the McGuffin Show.

McGuffin plans to begin a teaching certification program next year, which will allow others to teach within his camp business across the country.

But in the meantime, McGuffin is still passionate about playing the sport himself, and competing at the highest levels of professional pickleball. He’s a five-time Grand Slam champion, a four-time national champion and is currently the 11th-ranked men’s pro doubles player and fourth ranked in men’s singles.

He's also been at the forefront of popularizing the sport, with his big personality, charm and passionate game that always seems to draw a crowd.

“Tyson plays with a lot of fire,” said pickleball pro Jay Devilliers, who has played doubles with McGuffin. “We need personalities like that in the sport. It helps with the growth, for sure.”

McGuffin is doing all of this as a family man. He brings his wife, Megan, and their four young children occasionally to the biggest tournaments on the schedule and includes them in his crazy schedule that includes a ton of travel and all of his other ventures.

When he’s not playing, teaching, or working on recording his podcast, McGuffin is always considering his next move in the sport. Next, he wants to start a pickleball festival that would also include live music, food, and dancing at night.

“I want to take the sport to a different degree,” McGuffin said, “and be more the entertainer. I’ve taught my whole life, and that’s great, but I kind of want to do (more) and do some celebrity stuff. I’m getting offers left and right in doing this celebrity stuff.”

But with an infusion of brand endorsements and interest in his camps that will eventually be run by others, McGuffin sees the next few years as an opportunity to live his dream of finally being a full-time athlete.

That’s when McGuffin believes he will be able to make a serious run at being the absolute best pickleball player on the planet. That, ultimately, is the goal. To live out the dream he once had for tennis, but in pickleball.

“I’m the biggest hustler in the game,” McGuffin, “with content, camps and I’ve been grinding it out and have been at the top, but I’ve sort of been living the same story, losing to the same guys, and ending up third, fourth or fifth.

“If I can really take it serious, take care of my body better, do it the right way, I can really elevate and find a couple extra percentage points better. Even 2% better leads be to taking first or second as opposed to third or fourth.”

Andrew John covers sports for The Desert Sun and the USA Today Network. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com and find him on Twitter at @Andrew_L_John.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Pickleball star Tyson McGuffin has big plans for the sport and himself